THE ROAD TO GLORY 




On the decks above were three hundred desperate and 

well-armed natives. {P<^g^ 144) 



THE ROAD TO 
GLORY 



BY 

E. ALEXANDER POWELL 



ILLUSTRATED 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
NEW YORK::::::::::::::::::::::i9i5 



I f u ' 



Copyright, iqis, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published September, 1915 




SEP 30 1915 

(g)ClA410G97 



TO MY SON 
EDWARD ALEXANDER POWELL, III 



FOREWORD 

The great painting — it is called "Vers la 
Gloire," if I remember rightly — reaches from 
floor to ceiling of the Pantheon in Paris. Across 
the huge canvas, in a whirlwind of dust and 
color, sweeps an avalanche of horsemen — cuiras- 
siers, dragoons, lancers, guides, hussars, chasseurs 
— ^with lances levelled, blades swung high, banners 
streaming — France's unsung heroes in mad pursuit 
of Glory. 

That picture brings home to the youth of 
France the fact that the nation owes as great a 
debt of gratitude to men whose very names have 
been forgotten as to those whom it has rewarded 
with titles and decorations; it teaches that a 
man can be a hero without having his name cut 
deep in brass or stone; that time and time again 
history has been made by men whom the his- 
torians have overlooked or disregarded. 

This is even more true of our own country, for 
three-fourths of the territory of the United States 
was won for us by men whose names are without 
significance to most Americans. Nolan, Bean, 
Gutierrez, Magee, Kemper, Perry, Toledo, Hum- 
bert, Lallemand, De Aury, Mina, Long — these 

vii 



Foreword 

names doubtless convey nothing to you, yet it 
was the persistent and daring assaults made by 
these men upon the Spanish boundaries which 
undermined the power of Spain upon this conti- 
nent and paved the way for Austin, Milam, 
Travis, Bowie, Crockett, Ward, and Houston to 
effect the liberation of Texas. On the other side 
of the Gulf of Mexico the Kempers, McGregor, 
Hubbard, and Mathews harassed the Spaniards 
in the Floridas until Andrew Jackson, in an unof- 
ficial and almost unrecorded war, forced Spain 
to cede those rich provinces to the United States. 
In a desperate battle with savages on the banks 
of an obscure creek in Indiana, William Henry 
Harrison broke the power of Tecumseh's Indian 
confederation, set forward the hands of progress 
in the West a quarter of a century, and, inciden- 
tally, changed the map of Europe. A Missouri 
militia officer, Alexander Doniphan, without a 
war-chest, without supports, and without com- 
munications, invaded a hostile nation at the head 
of a thousand volunteers, repeatedly routed forces 
many times the strength of his own, conquered, 
subdued, and pacified a territory larger than 
France and Italy put together; and, after a march 
equivalent to a fourth of the circumference of the 
globe, returned to the United States, bringing with 

viii 



Foreword 

him battle-flags and cannon captured on fields 
whose names his country people had never so 
much as heard before. A missionary named 
Marcus Whitman, by the most daring and dra- 
matic ride in history, during which he crossed 
the continent on horseback in the depths of 
winter, facing death almost every mile from cold, 
starvation, or Indians, prevented the Pacific 
Northwest from passing under the rule of Eng- 
land. Matthew Perry, without firing a shot or 
shedding a drop of blood, opened Japan to com- 
merce, Christianity, and civilization, and made 
American influence predominant in the Pacific, 
though, a decade later, David McDougal was 
compelled to teach the yellow men respect for 
our citizens and our flag at the mouths of his 
belching guns. 

Certain of these men have been accused of 
being adventurers, as they unquestionably were 
— but what, pray, were Hawkins and Raleigh 
and Drake ? Others have been condemned as 
being filibusters, an accusation which in some 
cases was doubtless deserved — but were Jason 
and his Argonauts anything but filibusters who 
raided Colchis to loot it of the golden fleece ? 
Adventurers and fihbusters though some of them 
may have been, they were brave men (there can 

ix 



Foreword 

be no disputing that) and makers of history. 
But it was their fortune — or misfortune — to have 
been romantic and picturesque and to have gone 
ahead without the formahty of obtaining the 
government's commission or permission, which, 
in the eyes of the sedate and prosaic historians, 
has completely damned them. But, as we have 
not hesitated to benefit from the lands they won 
for us, it is but doing them the barest justice to 
listen to their stories. And I think you will agree 
with me that in their stories there is remarkably 
little of which we need to feel ashamed and much 
of which we have reason to be proud. 

Devious and dangerous were the roads which 
these men followed — amid the swamps of Flor- 
ida, across the sun-baked Texan prairies, down 
the burning deserts of Chihuahua, over the snow- 
bound ridges of the Rockies, into the miasmic 
jungles of Tabasco, along the pirate-haunted coasts 
of Malaysia, across the Indian country, through 
the mined and shot-swept straits of Shimonoseki; 
but, no matter what perils bordered them, or into 
what far corner of the earth they led, at the 
end Glory beckoned and called. 

E. Alexander Powell. 

Santa Barbara, 
California. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Foreword vii 

I. Adventurers All i 

11. When We Smashed the Prophet's 

Power 55 

III. The War That Wasn't a War . . 87 

IV. The Fight at Qualla Battoo . . . 131 

V. Under the Flag of the Lone Star 161 

VI. The Preacher Who Rode for an 

Empire 195 

VII. The March of the One Thousand . 235 

VIII. When We Fought the Japanese . . 277 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



On the decks above were three hundred desperate and 
well-armed natives frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

The Indians, panic-stricken at the sight of the on- 
coming troopers, broke and ran 84 

Bowie, propped on his pillows, shot two soldiers and 
plunged his terrible knife into the throat of another . 178 

In another moment the gun was pouring death into the 
ranks of its late owners 260 



ADVENTURERS ALL 



ADVENTURERS ALL 

THIS story properly begins in an emperor's 
bathtub. The bathtub was in the Palace 
of the Tuileries, and, immersed to the chin in 
its cologne-scented water, was Napoleon. The 
nineteenth century was but a three-year-old; the 
month was April, and the trees in the Tuileries 
Garden were just bursting into bud; and the 
First Consul — he made himself Emperor a few 
weeks later — ^was taking his Sunday-morning bath. 
There was a scratch at the door — scratching hav- 
ing been substituted for knocking in the palace 
after the Egyptian campaign — and the Mame- 
luke body-guard ushered into the bathroom Na- 
poleon's brothers Joseph and Lucien. How the 
conversation began between this remarkable trio 
of Corsicans is of small consequence. It is enough 
to know that Napoleon dumfounded his brothers 
by the blunt announcement that he had deter- 
mined to sell the great colony of Louisiana — all 
that remained to France of her North American 
empire — to the United States. He made this 
astounding announcement, as Joseph wrote after- 

3 



The Road to Glory 

ward, "with as little ceremony as our dear father 
would have shown in selling a vineyard." In- 
censed at Napoleon's cool assumption that the 
great overseas possession was his to dispose of as 
he saw fit, Joseph, his hot Corsican blood getting 
the better of his discretion, leaned over the tub 
and shook his clinched fist in the face of his au- 
gust brother. 

"What you propose is unconstitutional!" he 
cried. "If you attempt to carry it out I swear 
that I will be the first to oppose you !" 

White with passion at this unaccustomed oppo- 
sition. Napoleon raised himself until half his body 
was out of the opaque and frothy water. 

"You will have no chance to oppose me!" he 
screamed, beside himself with anger. "I con- 
ceived this scheme, I negotiated it, and I shall 
execute it. I will accept the responsibility for 
what I do. Bah ! I scorn your opposition !" And 
he dropped back into the bath so suddenly that 
the resultant splash drenched the future King of 
Spain from head to foot. This extraordinary 
scene, which, ludicrous though it was, was to 
vitally affect the future of the United States, 
was brought to a sudden termination by the 
valet, who had been waiting with the bath tow- 
els, shocked at the spectacle of a future Emperor 

4 



Adventurers All 

and a future King quarrelling in a bathroom over 
the disposition of an empire, falling on the floor in 
a faint. 

Though this narrative concerns itself, from be- 
ginning to end, with adventurers — if Bonaparte 
himself was not the very prince of adventurers, 
then I do not know the meaning of the word — it 
is necessary, for its proper understanding, to here 
interject a paragraph or two of contemporaneous 
history. In 1800 Napoleon, whose fertile brain 
was planning the re-establishment in America of 
that French colonial empire which a generation 
before had been destroyed by England, persuaded 
the King of Spain, by the bribe of a petty Italian 
principality, to cede Louisiana to the French. 
But in the next three years things turned out so 
contrary to his expectations that he was reluc- 
tantly compelled to abandon his scheme for co- 
lonial expansion and prepare for eventuahties 
nearer home. The army he had sent to Haiti, 
and which he had intended to throw into Louisi- 
ana, had wasted away from disease and in battle 
with the blacks under the skilful leadership of 
L'Ouverture until but a pitiful skeleton remained. 
Meanwhile the attitude of England and Austria 
was steadily growing more hostile, and it did not 
need a telescope to see the war-clouds which her- 

5 



The Road to Glory 

aided another great European struggle piling up 
on France's political horizon. Realizing that in 
the life-and-death struggle which was approach- 
ing he could not be hampered with the defense 
of a distant colony, Napoleon decided that, if he 
was unable to hold Louisiana, he would at least 
put it out of the reach of his arch-enemy, Eng- 
land, by seUing it to the United States. It was 
a master-stroke of diplomacy. Moreover, he 
needed money — needed it badly, too — for France, 
impoverished by the years of warfare from which 
she had just emerged, was ill prepared to embark 
on another struggle. 

There were in Paris at this time two Ameri- 
cans, Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe, 
who had been commissioned by President Jeffer- 
son to negotiate with the French Government for 
the purchase of the city of New Orleans and a 
small strip of territory adjacent to it, so that the 
settlers in Kentucky and Tennessee might have a 
free port on the gulf. After months spent in dip- 
lomatic intercourse, during which Talleyrand, the 
French foreign minister, could be induced neither 
to accept nor reject their proposals, the commis- 
sioners were about ready to abandon the business 
in despair. I doubt, therefore, if there were two 
more astonished men in all Europe than the 

6 



Adventurers All 

two Americans when Talleyrand abruptly asked 
them whether the United States would buy the 
whole of Louisiana and what price it would be will- 
ing to pay. It was as though a man had gone to 
buy a cow and the owner had suddenly offered 
him his whole farm. Though astounded and em- 
barrassed, for they had been authorized to spend 
but two million dollars in the contemplated pur- 
chase, the Americans had the courage to shoulder 
the responsibility of making so tremendous a 
transaction, for there was no time to communi- 
cate with Washington and no one realized better 
than they did that Louisiana must be purchased 
at once if it was to be had at all. England and 
France were, as they knew, on the very brink of 
war, and they also knew that the first thing Eng- 
land would do when war was declared would be to 
seize Louisiana, in which case it would be lost to 
the United States forever. This necessity for 
prompt action permitted of but little haggling 
over terms, and on May 22, 1803, Napoleon signed 
the treaty which transferred the million square 
miles comprised in the colony of Louisiana to the 
United States for fifteen million dollars. Nor 
was the sale effected an instant too soon, for on 
that very day England declared war. 

Now, in purchasing Louisiana, Jefferson, though 

7 



The Road to Glory 

he got the greatest bargain in history, found that 
the French had thrown in a boundary dispute to 
give good measure. The treaty did not specify 
the limits of the colony. 

"What are the boundaries of Louisiana ?'' Liv- 
ingston asked Talleyrand when the treaty was 
being prepared. 

*'I don't know," was the answer. "You must 
take it as we received it from Spain." 

"But what did you receive?" persisted the 
American. 

"I don't know," repeated the minister. "You 
are getting a noble bargain, monsieur, and you 
will doubtless make the best of it." 

As a matter of fact, Talleyrand was telling the 
literal truth (which must have been a novel ex- 
perience for him) : he did not know. The bound- 
aries of Louisiana had never been definitely es- 
tablished. It seems, indeed, to have come under 
the application of 

"The good old rule . . . the simple plan, 
That they shall take who have the power, 
And they shall keep who can." 

Hence, though American territory and Spanish 
marched side by side for twenty-five hundred 
miles, it v/as found impossible to agree on a 

8 



Adventurers All 

definite line of demarcation, the United States 
claiming that its new purchase extended as far 
westward as the Sabine River, while Spain em- 
phatically asserted that the Mississippi formed the 
dividing line. Along about 1806, however, a work- 
ing arrangement was agreed upon, whereby Ameri- 
can troops were not to move west of the Red 
River, while Spanish soldiers were not to go east 
of the Sabine. For the next fifteen years this 
arrangement remained in force, the strip of ter- 
ritory between these two rivers, which was known 
as the neutral ground, quickly becoming a recog- 
nized place of refuge for fugitives from justice, 
bandits, desperadoes, adventurers, and bad men. 
To it, as though drawn by a magnet, flocked the 
adventure-hungry from every corner of the three 
Americas. 

The vast territory beyond the Sabine, then 
known as New Spain and a few years later, when 
it had achieved its independence, as Mexico, was 
ruled from the distant City of Mexico in true 
Spanish style. MiHtary rule held full sway; civil 
law was unknown. Foreigners without passports 
were imprisoned; trading across the Sabine was 
prohibited; the Spanish officials were suspicious 
of every one. Because this trade was forbid- 
den was the very thing that made it so attrac- 

9 



The Road to Glory 

tive to the merchants of the frontier, while the 
grassy plains and fertile lowlands beyond the Sa- 
bine beckoned alluringly to the stock-raiser and 
the settler. And though there was just enough 
danger to attract them there was not enough 
strength to awe them. Jeering at governmental 
restrictions, Spanish and American ahke, the 
frontiersmen began to pour across the Sabine into 
Texas in an ever-increasing stream. "Gone to 
Texas" was scrawled on the door of many a de- 
serted cabin in Alabama, Tennessee, and Ken- 
tucky. **Go to Texas" became a slang phrase 
heard everywhere. On the western river steam- 
boats the officers' quarters on the hurricane-deck 
were called "the texas" because of their remote- 
ness. When a boy wanted to coerce his family 
he threatened to run away to Texas. It was felt 
to be beyond the natural limits of the world, and 
the glamour which hovered over this mysterious 
and forbidden land lured to its conquest the most 
picturesque and hardy breed of men that ever 
foreran the columns of civilization. A contempt 
for the Spanish, a passion for adventure were the 
attitude of the people of our frontier as they 
strained impatiently against the Spanish bound- 
aries. The American Government had nothing 
to do with winning Texas for the American people. 

lO 



Adventurers All 

The American frontiersmen won Texas for them- 
selves, unaided either by statesmen or by soldiers. 

Though these men wrote with their swords 
some of the most thrilling chapters in our history, 
their very existence has been ignored by most 
of our historians. Though they performed deeds 
of valor of which any people would have reason 
to be proud, it was in an unofficial, shirt-sleeve 
sort of warfare, which the National Government 
neither authorized nor approved. Though they 
laid the foundations for adding an enormous terri- 
tory to our national domain, no monuments or 
memorials have been erected to them; even their 
names hold no significance for their countrymen 
of the present generation. In short, they were fili- 
busters, and that, in the eyes of those smug folk 
who believe that nothing can be meritorious that 
is done without the sanction of congresses and 
parliaments, completely damned them. They 
were American dreamers. Had they lived in the 
days of Cortes and Pizarro and Balboa, of Haw- 
kins and Raleigh and Drake, history would have 
dealt more kindly with them. 

The free-lance leaders, who, during the first 
quarter of the nineteenth century made the 
neutral ground a synonym for hair-raising adven- 
ture and desperate daring, were truly remarkable 

II 



The Road to Glory 

men. Five of them had held commissions in the 
army of the United States; one of them had 
commanded the French army sent to Ireland; 
another was a peer of France and had led a divi- 
sion at Waterloo; others had won rank and dis- 
tinction under Napoleon, Bolivar, and Jackson. 
But because they wore strange uniforms and 
fought under unfamiliar flags, and because, in 
some cases at least, they were actuated by mo- 
tives more personal than patriotic, the historians 
have assumed that we do not want to know about 
them, or that it will be better for us not to know 
about them. They take it for granted that it is 
better for Americans to think that our territorial 
expansion was accomplished by men with govern- 
ment credentials in their pockets, and when these 
unofficial conquerors are mentioned they turn 
away their heads as though ashamed. But I be- 
lieve that our people would prefer to know the 
truth about these men, and I believe that when 
they have heard it they will agree with me that 
in their amazing exploits there is much of which 
we have cause to be proud and surprisingly little 
of which we have need to feel ashamed. 

The first of these adventurous spirits who for 
more than twenty years kept the Spanish and 
Mexican authorities in a fume of apprehension, was 

12 



Adventurers All 

a young Kentuckian named Philip Nolan. He 
was the first American explorer of Texas and the 
first man to pubHsh a description of that region 
in the English language. He spent his boyhood 
in Frankfort, Kentucky, and as a young man 
turned up in New Orleans, then under Spanish 
rule, having been, apparently, a person of con- 
siderable importance in the little city. Having 
heard rumors that immense droves of mustangs 
roamed the plains of Texas and seeing for him- 
self that the Spanish troopers in Louisiana were 
badly in need of horses, he told the Spanish gov- 
ernor that if he would agree to purchase the 
animals from him at a fixed price per head and 
would give him a permit for the purpose, he would 
organize an expedition to capture wild horses in 
Texas and bring them back to New Orleans. 
The governor, who liked the young Kentuckian, 
promptly signed the contract, gave the permit, 
and Nolan, with a handful of companions, crossed 
the Sabine into Texas, corralled his horses, brought 
them to New Orleans, and was paid for them. It 
was a profitable transaction for every one con- 
cerned. It was so successful that another year 
Nolan did it again. On the proceeds he went to 
Natchez, married the beauty of the town, and 
built a home. But along toward the close of 

13 



The Road to Glory 

1800 the governor wanted remounts again, for the 
Spanish cavalrymen seemed incapable of taking 
even ordinary care of their horses. So Nolan, who 
was, I fancy, already growing a trifle weary of the 
tameness of domestic life, enlisted the services 
of a score of frontiersmen as adventure-loving as 
himself, kissed his bride of a year good-by, and, 
after showing his passports to the American border 
patrol and satisfying them that his venture had 
the approval of the Spanish authorities, once more 
crossed the Sabine into Texas. For a proper un- 
derstanding of what occurred it is necessary to 
explain that, though Louisiana was under the juris- 
diction of the Spanish Foreign Office (for this was 
before the province had been ceded to France), 
Texas was under the control of the Spanish Co- 
lonial Office. Between these two branches of the 
government the bitterest jealousy existed, and a 
passport issued by one was as likely as not to be 
disregarded by the other. In fact, the colonial 
officials were only too glad of an opportunity to 
humiliate and embarrass those connected with the 
Foreign Office. But Nolan and his men, ignorant 
of this departmental jealousy and conscious that 
they were engaged in a perfectly innocent enter- 
prise, went ahead with their business of capturing 
and breaking horses. Crossing the Trinity, they 

14 



Adventurers All 

found themselves on the edge of an immense rolling 
prairie which, as they advanced, became more and 
more arid and forbidding. There were no trees, 
not even underbrush, and the only fuel they could 
find was the dried dung of the buffalo. These ani- 
mals, though once numerous, had disappeared, 
and for nine days the little company had to sub- 
sist on the flesh of mustangs. They eventually 
reached the banks of the Brazos, however, where 
they found plenty of elk and deer, some buffalo, 
and "wild horses by thousands.'' Establishing a 
camp upon the present site of Waco, they built a 
stockade and captured and corralled three hun- 
dred head of horses. While lounging about the 
camp-fire one night, telling the stories and sing- 
ing the songs of the frontier and thinking, no 
doubt, of the folks at home, a force of one hundred 
and fifty Spaniards, commanded by Don Nimesio 
Salcedo, commandant-general of the northeastern 
provinces, creeping up under cover of the darkness, 
succeeded in surrounding the unsuspecting Ameri- 
cans, who, warned of the proximity of strangers 
by the restlessness of their horses, retreated into 
a square enclosure of logs which they had built 
as a protection against an attack by Indians. At 
daybreak the Spaniards opened fire, and Nolan 
fell with a bullet through his brain. The com- 

15 



The Road to Glory 

mand of the expedition then devolved upon EUis 
P. Bean, a boy of seventeen, who, from the scanty 
shelter of the log pen, continued a resistance that 
was hopeless from the first. Every one of the 
Americans was a dead shot and at fifty paces 
could hit a dollar held between a man's fingers, 
but they were vastly outnumbered, they were un- 
provisioned for a siege, and, as a final discourage- 
ment, the Spaniards now brought up a swivel-gun 
and opened on them with grape. Bean urged his 
men to follow him in an attempt to capture this 
field-piece. "It's nothing more than death, boys," 
he told them, "and if we stay here we shall be 
killed anyway." But his men were faUing dead 
about him as he spoke, and the eleven left alive 
decided that their only chance, and that was 
slim enough. Heaven knows, lay in an immediate 
retreat. Filling their powder-horns and bullet 
pouches and loading the balance of their ammuni- 
tion on the back of a negro slave named Caesar, 
they started off across the prairie on their hopeless 
march, the Spaniards hanging to the flanks of the 
little party as wolves hang to the flank of a dying 
steer. All that day they plodded eastward under 
the broihng sun, bringing down with their unerring 
rifles those Spaniards who were incautious enough 
to venture within range. But at last they were 

i6 



Adventurers All 

forced, by lack of food and water, to accept the 
offer of the Spanish commander to permit them to 
return to the United States unharmed if they would 
surrender and promise not to enter Texas again. 
No sooner had they given up their arms, however, 
than the Spaniards, afraid no longer, put their 
prisoners in irons and marched them off to San 
Antonio, where they were kept in prison for three 
months; then to San Luis Potosi, where they were 
confined for sixteen months more, eventually being 
forwarded, still in arms, to Chihuahua, where, in 
January, 1804, they were tried by a Spanish court, 
were defended by a Spanish lawyer, were acquitted, 
and the judge ordered their release. But Salcedo, 
who had become the governor of the province, 
determined that the hated gringos should not thus 
easily escape, countermanded the findings of the 
court, and forwarded the papers in the case to 
the King of Spain. The King, by a decree issued 
in February, 1807, after these innocent Americans 
had already been captives for nearly seven years, 
ordered that one out of every five of them should 
be hung, and the rest put at hard labor for ten 
years. But when the decree reached Chihuahua 
there were only nine prisoners left, two of them 
having died from the hardships to which they 
had been subjected. Under the circumstances 

17 



The Road to Glory 

the judge, who was evidently a man of some 
compassion, construed the decree as meaning that 
only one of the remaining nine should be put to 
death. 

On the morning of the 9th of November, 1807, 
a party of Spanish officials proceeded to the bar- 
racks where the Americans were confined and an 
officer read the King's barbarous decree. A drum 
was brought, a tumbler and dice were set upon 
it, and around it, blindfolded, knelt the nine par- 
ticipants in this lottery of death. Some day, no 
doubt, when time has accorded these men the 
justice of perspective, Texas will commission a 
famous artist to paint the scene: the turquoise 
sky, the yellow sand, the sun glare on the white- 
washed adobe of the barrack walls, the little, 
brown-skinned soldiers in their slovenly uniforms 
of soiled white linen, the Spanish officers, gor- 
geous in scarlet and gold lace, awed in spite of 
themselves by the solemnity of the occasion, and, 
kneeling in a circle about the drum, in their 
frayed and tattered buckskin, the prison pallor 
on their faces, the nine Americans — cool, com- 
posed, and unafraid. 

Ephraim Blackburn, a Virginian and the 
oldest of the prisoners, took the fatal 
glass and with a hand which did not trem- 

18 



Adventurers All 

ble — though I imagine that he whispered 

a Httle prayer — threw 3 and i 4 

Lucian Garcia threw 3 and 4 7 

Joseph Reed threw 6 and 5 11 

David Fero threw 5 and 3 8 

Solomon Cooley threw 6 and 5 11 

Jonah Walters threw 6 and i 7 

Charles Ring threw 4 and 3 7 

William Dawlin threw 4 and 2 6 

Ellis Bean threw 4 and i 5 

Whereupon they took poor Ephraim Blackburn 
out and hanged him. 

After Blackburn's execution three of the re- 
maining prisoners were set at Hberty, but Bean, 
with four of his companions, all heavily ironed, 
were started off under guard for Mexico City. 
Any one who questions the assertion that fact is 
stranger than fiction will change his mind after 
hearing of Bean's subsequent adventures. They 
read like the wildest and most improbable of dime 
novels. When the prisoners reached Salamanca 
a young and strikingly beautiful woman, evidently 
attracted by Bean's youth and magnificent phy- 
sique, managed to approach him unobserved and 
asked him in a whisper if he did not wish to es- 
cape. (As if, after his years of captivity and 
hardship, he could have wished otherwise !) 

19 



The Road to Glory 

Then she disappeared as silently and mysteriously 
as she had come. The next day the senora, who, 
as it proved, was the girl wife of a rich old hus- 
band, by bribing the guard, contrived to see Bean 
again. She told him quite frankly that her hus- 
band, whom she had been forced to marry against 
her will, was absent at his silver mines, and sug- 
gested that, if Bean would promise not to desert 
her, she would find means to effect his escape 
and that they could then fly together to the 
United States. It shows the manner of man this 
American adventurer was that, on the plea that 
he could not desert his companions in misfortune, 
he declined her offer. The next day, as the pris- 
oners once again took up their weary march to 
the southward, the senora slipped into Bean's 
hand a small package. When an opportunity 
came for him to open it he found that it con- 
tained a letter from his fair admirer, a gold ring, 
and a considerable sum of money. 

Instead of being released upon their arrival at 
the city of Mexico, as they had been led to ex- 
pect, the Americans were marched to Acapulco, 
on the Pacific, then a port of great importance 
because of its trade with the Philippines. Here 
Bean was placed in solitary confinement, the only 
human beings he saw for many months being the 

20 



Adventurers All 

jailer who brought him his scanty daily allow- 
ance of food and the sentry who paced up and 
down outside his cell. Had it not been for a 
white lizard which he found in his dungeon and 
which, with incredible patience, he succeeded in 
taming, he would have gone mad from the intol- 
erable solitude. Learning from the sentinel that 
one of his companions had been taken ill and had 
been transferred to the hospital, Bean, who was 
a resourceful fellow, prepared his pulse by strik- 
ing his elbows on the floor and then sent for the 
prison doctor. Though he was sent to the hos- 
pital, as he had anticipated, not only were his 
irons not removed but his legs were placed in 
stocks, and, on the theory that eating is not good 
for a sick man, his allowance of food was greatly 
reduced, his meat for a day consisting of the head 
of a chicken. When Bean remonstrated with the 
priest over the insufficient nourishment he was 
receiving, the padre told him that if he wasn't 
satisfied with what he was getting he could go to 
the devil. Whereupon, his anger overpowering 
his judgment. Bean hurled his plate at the friar's 
shaven head and laid it open. For this he was 
punished by having his head put in the stocks, 
in an immovable position, for fifteen days. When 
he recovered from the real fever which this bar- 

21 



The Road to Glory 

barous punishment brought on, he was only too 
glad to go back to the solitude of his cell and his 
friend the lizard. 

While being taken back to prison, Bean, who 
had succeeded in concealing on his person the 
money which the senora in Salamanca had given 
him, suggested to his guards that they stop at a 
tavern and have something to drink. A Span- 
iard never refuses a drink, and they accepted. 
So skilfully did he ply them with liquor that one 
of them fell into a drunken stupor while the other 
became so befuddled that Bean found no diffi- 
culty in enticing him into the garden at the back 
of the tavern on the plea that he wished to show 
him a certain flower. As the man was bending 
over to examine the plant to which Bean had 
called his attention, the American leaped upon 
his back and choked him into unconsciousness. 
Heavily manacled though he was. Bean succeeded 
in clambering over the high wall and escaped to 
the woods outside the city, where he filed ofF his 
irons with the steel he used for striking fire. Con- 
cealing himself until nightfall, he slipped into the 
town again, where he found an English sailor 
who, upon hearing his pitiful story, smuggled him 
aboard his vessel and concealed him in a water- 
cask. But, just as the anchor was being hoisted 

22 



Adventurers All 

and he believed himself free at last, a party of 
Spanish soldiers boarded the vessel and hauled 
him out of his hiding-place — he had been betrayed 
by the Portuguese cook. For this attempt at es- 
cape he was sentenced to eighteen months more 
of solitary confinement. 

One day, happening to overhear an officer 
speaking of having some rock blasted, Bean sent 
word to him that he was an expert at that busi- 
ness, whereupon he was taken out and put to 
work. Before he had been in the quarry a week 
he succeeded in once more making his escape. 
Travelling by night and hiding by day, he beat his 
way up the coast, only to be retaken some weeks 
later. When he was brought before the governor 
of Acapulco that official went into a paroxysm 
of rage at sight of the American whose iron will 
he had been unable to break either by imprison- 
ment or torture. Bean, who had reached such a 
stage of desperation that he didn't care what 
happened to him, looking the governor squarely 
in the eye, told him, in terms which seared and 
burned, exactly what he thought of him and de- 
fied him to do his worst. That official, at his 
wits' end to know how to subdue the unruly 
American, gave orders that he was to be chained 
to a gigantic mulatto, the most dangerous crimi- 

23 



The Road to Glory 

nal in the prison, the latter being promised a year's 
reduction in his sentence if he would take care of 
his yokemate, whom he was authorized to pun- 
ish as frequently as he saw fit. But the punish- 
ing was the other way around, for Bean pommelled 
the big negro so terribly that the latter sent word 
to the governor that he would rather have his 
sentence increased than to be longer chained to 
the mad Americano. By this time Bean had 
every one in the castle, from the governor to the 
lowest warder, completely terrorized, for they 
recognized that he was desperate and would stop 
at nothing. He was, in fact, such a hard case 
that the governor of Acapulco wrote to the vice- 
roy that he could do nothing with him and begged 
to be relieved of his dangerous prisoner. The 
latter, in reply, sent an order for his removal to 
the Spanish penal settlement in the Philippines. 
But while awaiting a vessel the revolt led by 
Morelos, the Mexican patriot, broke out, and 
a rebel army advanced on Acapulco. The pris- 
ons of New Spain had been emptied to obtain re- 
cruits to fill the Spanish ranks, and Bean was 
the only prisoner left in the citadel. The Spanish 
authorities, desperately in need of men, offered 
him his liberty if he would help to defend the 
town. Bean agreed, his irons were knocked off, 

24 



Adventurers All 

he was given a gun, and became a soldier. But 
he felt that he owed no loyalty to his Spanish 
captors; so, when an opportunity presented itself 
a few weeks later, he went over to Morelos, tak- 
ing with him a number of the garrison. A born 
soldier, hard as nails, amazingly resourceful and 
brave to the point of rashness, he quickly won 
the confidence and friendship of the patriot leader, 
who commissioned him a colonel in the Repub- 
lican army. When Morelos left Acapulco to con- 
tinue his campaign in the south, he turned the 
command of the besieging forces over to the ex- 
convict, who, a few weeks later, carried the city 
by storm. It must have been a proud moment 
for the American adventurer, not yet thirty years 
of age, when he stood in the plaza of the captured 
city and received the sword of the governor who 
had treated him with such fiendish cruelty.* 



* In 1814 Bean was sent by General Morelos, then president of 
the revolutionary party in Mexico, on a mission to the United States 
to procure aid for the patriot cause. At the port of Nautla he found 
a vessel belonging to Lafitte, which conveyed him to the headquarters 
of the pirate chief, at Barataria. Upon informing Lafitte of his 
mission, the buccaneer had him conveyed to New Orleans, where 
Bean found an old acquaintance in General Andrew Jackson, upon 
whose invitation he took command of one of the batteries on the 
8th of January and fought by the side of Lafitte in that battle. 
Colonel Bean eventually rose to high rank under the Mexican re- 
public, married a Mexican heiress, and died on her hacienda near 
Jalapa in 1846. 

25 



The Road to Glory 

When the story of the treatment of Nolan and 
his companions trickled back to the settlements 
and was repeated from village to village and from 
house to house, every repetition served to fan the 
flame of hatred of everything Spanish, which grew 
fiercer and fiercer in the Southwest as the years 
rolled by. From the horror and indignation 
aroused along the frontier by the treatment of 
these men, whom the undiscerning historians have 
unjustly described as filibusters, sprang that move- 
ment which ended, a quarter of a century later, 
in freeing Texas forever from the cruelties of 
Latin rule. Thus it came about that Nolan and 
his companions did not suffer in vain. 

Though during the years immediately follow- 
ing Nolan's ill-fated expedition all Mexico was 
aflame with the revolt lighted by the patriot priest 
Hidalgo, things were fairly quiet along the bor- 
der. But this was not to last. After the cap- 
ture and execution of the militant priest one of 
his followers, Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara, after 
a thrilling flight across Texas, found refuge in 
Natchez, where he made the acquaintance of 
Lieutenant Augustus Magee, a brilliant young of- 
ficer of the American garrison. Gutierrez painted 
pictures with words as an artist does with the 
brush, and so inspiring were the scenes his ready 

26 



Adventurers All 

tongue depicted that they fired the young lieuten- 
ant with an ambition to aid in freeing Mexico 
from Spanish rule. Magee was of a daring and 
romantic disposition and accepted without ques- 
tion the stories told him by Gutierrez. His plan 
seems to have been to conquer Texas to the Rio 
Grande and, after building up a republican state, 
to apply for admission to the Union. Resigning 
his commission, he threw himself heart and soul 
into the business of recruiting an expedition from 
the adventurers who made New Orleans — now 
become an American city — their headquarters 
and from the freebooters of the neutral ground. 
A call to these men to join the "Republican Army 
of the North" and receive forty dollars a month 
and a square league of land in Texas was eagerly 
responded to, and by June, 1812, Gutierrez and 
Magee had recruited half a thousand daredevils 
who, for the sake of adventure, were willing to 
follow their leaders anywhere. Most of them 
were "two-gun men,'' which means that they 
went into action with a pistol in each hand and 
a knife between the teeth, and they didn't know 
the name of fear. In order to secure the co- 
operation of the Mexican population of Texas, 
Gutierrez was named commander-in-chief of the 
expedition, though the real leader was Magee, 

27 



The Road to Glory 

who held the position of chief of staff, an Amer- 
ican frontiersman named Reuben Kemper being 
commissioned major. 

In the beginning everything was as easy as 
falHng down-stairs. The time chosen for the ven- 
ture was pecuHarly propitious, for the Spaniards 
had their hands full with the civil war in Mexico, 
which they supposed they had ended with the 
capture and execution of Hidalgo, but which had 
broken out again under the leadership of another 
priest, named Morelos. As a result of the demor- 
alization which existed, the Americans were al- 
most unopposed in their advance. Nacogdoches 
fell before them, and so did the fort at Spanish 
Bluff, and by November, 1812, they had raised 
the republican standard over La Bahia, or, as it 
is known to-day, Goliad. Three days later Gov- 
ernor Salcedo — the same who had attacked No- 
lan's party a dozen years before — marched against 
the town with fourteen hundred men. Though 
the Americans were outnumbered more than two 
to one, they did not wait for the Spaniards to 
attack but sallied out and drove them back in 
confusion. Whereupon the Spaniards sat down 
without the town and prepared to conduct a 
siege, and the Americans sat down within and 
prepared to resist it. It ended in a peculiar fash- 

28 



Adventurers All 

ion. During a three days' armistice Salcedo in- 
vited Magee to dine with him in the Spanish 
camp, and the American commander accepted. 
What arguments or inducements the astute Span- 
iard brought to bear on the young American can 
only be conjectured, but, at any rate, Magee 
agreed to surrender the town on condition that 
all of his men should be sent back to the United 
States in safety. To this condition Salcedo as- 
sented. Returning to the town, Magee had his 
men paraded, told them what he had done, and 
asked all who approved of his action to shoulder 
arms. For some moments after he had finished 
they stared at him in mingled amazement, in- 
credulity, and suspicion. It was unbelievable, 
unthinkable, preposterous, that he, the idol of 
the army, the hero of a dozen engagements, a 
product of the great officer factory at West Point, 
should even contemplate, much less advocate, 
surrender. Not only did they not shoulder arms, 
but most of them, to emphasize their disapproval, 
brought their rifle butts crashing to the ground. 
For a few moments Magee stood with sunken 
head and downcast eyes; then he slowly turned 
and entered his tent. An hour or so later a mes- 
senger under a flag of truce brought a curt note 
from Salcedo reminding Magee of their agree- 

29 



The Road to Glory 

ment and demanding to know why he had not 
surrendered the town as he had promised. The 
message was opened by Gutierrez, who ordered 
that no answer should be sent, whereupon Sal- 
cedo threw his entire force against the town in 
an attempt to carry it by storm. But the Amer- 
icans, though sick at heart at the action of their 
young commander, were far from being demor- 
alized, as the oncoming Spaniards quickly found, 
for as they reached the outer Hne of intrench- 
ments the Americans met them with a blast of 
lead which wiped out their leading companies 
and sent the balance scampering San Antonio- 
ward. Throughout the action Magee remained 
hidden in his tent. When an orderly went to 
summon him the next morning he found the 
young West Pointer stretched upon the floor, with 
a pistol in his hand and the back blown out of 
his head. 

Though Gutierrez still retained the nominal 
rank of general, the actual command of "the 
Army of the North'' now devolved upon Major 
Reuben Kemper, a gigantic Virginian who, de- 
spite the fact that he was the son of a Baptist 
preacher, was celebrated from one end of the fron- 
tier to the other for his "eloquent profanity." 
Kemper was a man well fitted to wield authority 

30 



Adventurers All 

on such an expedition. He had a neck Hke a 
bull, a chest like a barrel, a voice Hke a bass 
drum, and it was said that even the mates on the 
Mississippi River boats listened with admiration 
and envy to his swearing. Nor was he a novice 
at the business of fighting Spaniards, for a dozen 
years before he and his two brothers had been 
concerned in a desperate attempt to free Florida 
from Spanish rule; in 1808 he had been one of 
a party of Americans who had attempted to cap- 
ture Baton Rouge, had been taken prisoner, sen- 
tenced to death, and saved by the intervention of 
an American officer on the very morning set for 
his execution; and the following year, undeterred 
by the narrowness of his escape, he had made a 
similar attempt, with similar unsuccess, to capture 
Mobile. The cruelties he had seen perpetrated 
by the Spaniards had so worked on his mind that 
he had vowed to devote the rest of his life to 
ridding North America of Spanish rule. 

Such, then, was the picturesque figure who as- 
sumed command of "the Army of the North,'* 
now consisting of eight hundred Americans, one 
hundred and eighty Mexicans, and three hundred 
and twenty-five Indians, and led it against the 
Spaniards, twenty-five hundred strong and with 
several pieces of artillery, who were encamped 

31 



The Road to Glory 

at Resales, near San Antonio. As soon as his 
scouts reported the proximity of the Spaniards, 
who were ambushed in the dense chaparral which 
lined the road along which the Americans were 
advancing, Kemper threw his force into battle 
formation, ordering his men to advance to within 
thirty paces of the Spanish Hne, fire three rounds, 
load the fourth time, and charge. The movement 
was performed in as perfect order as though the 
Americans had been on a parade-ground and no 
enemy within a hundred miles. Demoralized by 
the machine-like precision of the Americans' ad- 
vance and the deadliness of the volleys poured 
into them, the Spaniards broke and ran, Kemper's 
Indian allies remorselessly pursuing the panic- 
stricken fugitives until nightfall put an end to 
the slaughter. In this great Texan battle, for 
any mention of which you will search most of the 
histories in vain, nearly a thousand Spaniards 
were killed and wounded. The Indians saw to 
it that there were few prisoners. 

The next day the victorious Americans reached 
San Antonio and sent in a messenger, under a 
flag of truce, demanding the unconditional sur- 
render of the town and garrison. Governor Sal- 
cedo sent back word that he would give his deci- 
sion in the morning. "Present yourself and your 

32 



Adventurers All 

staff in our camp at once," Kemper replied, "or 
I shall storm the town." (And when a town was 
carried by storm it was understood that no pris- 
oners would be taken.) When Salcedo entered 
the American lines he was met by Captain Tay- 
lor, to whom he offered his sword, but that officer 
declined to accept it and sent him to Colonel 
Kemper. On offering it to the big frontiersman, 
it was again refused, and he was told to take it 
to General Gutierrez, who was the ranking officer 
of the expedition. By this time the patience of 
the haughty Spaniard was exhausted, and, plung- 
ing the weapon into the ground, he turned his 
back on Gutierrez. A few hours later the Ameri- 
cans entered San Antonio in triumph, released 
the prisoners in the local jails, and, from all I 
can gather, took pretty much everything of value 
on which they could lay their hands. When 
Kemper asked his Indian allies what share of the 
loot they wanted, they replied that they would 
be quite satisfied with two dollars' worth of ver- 
milion. 

After the capture of San Antonio, General Gu- 
tierrez, who, though he had been content to let 
the Americans do the fighting, now that he was 
among his own people swelled up like a turkey 
gobbler, announced that he had decided to send 

3S 



The Road to Glory 

the Spanish officers who had been captured to 
New Orleans, where they would be held as hos- 
tages until the war was over. To this suggestion 
the Americans readily agreed, and that evening 
the governor and his staff, with the other officers 
who had surrendered, started for the coast under 
the guard of a company of Mexicans. When a 
mile and a half below the town, on the east bank 
of the San Antonio River, the captives were 
halted, stripped, and tied, and their throats cut 
from ear to ear, some of the Mexicans even whet- 
ting their knives upon the soles of their shoes in 
the presence of their victims. When Kemper 
learned of this butchery of defenseless prisoners 
he strode up to Gutierrez and, catching him by 
the throat, held him at arm's length and shook 
him as a terrier does a rat, meanwhile ripping 
out a stream of invectives that would have seared 
a thinner-skinned man as effectually as a brand- 
ing-iron. Then, refusing to longer serve under so 
barbarous a leader, Kemper resigned his commis- 
sion and, followed by most of the other American 
officers of standing, set out for New Orleans. 

Of the American officers who remained Cap- 
tain Perry was the highest in rank and the most 
able, and to him was given the direction of the 
expedition, Gutierrez, for reasons of policy, still 

34 



Adventurers All 

retaining nominal command. With the departure 
of Kemper came a relaxation in the iron disci- 
pHne which he had maintained and the troops, 
drunk with victory and believing that the cam- 
paign was all over but the shouting, broke loose 
in every form of dissipation. While in this state 
of unpreparedness, they were surprised by a force 
of three thousand Spaniards under General Eli- 
sondo. Instead of marching directly upon San 
Antonio and capturing it, as he could have done 
in view of the demoralization which prevailed, 
Elisondo made the mistake of intrenching him- 
self in the graveyard half a mile without the 
town. But in the face of the enemy the disci- 
pline for which the Americans were celebrated re- 
turned, for first, last, and all the time they were 
fighters. At ten o'clock on the evening of June 
4 the Americans, marching in file, moved silently 
out of the town. In the most profound silence 
they approached the Spanish lines until they 
could hear the voices of the pickets; then they 
lay down, their arms beside them, and waited for 
the coming of the dawn. Colonel Perry chose the 
moment when the Spaniards were assembled at 
daybreak for matins to launch his attack. Even 
then no orders were spoken, the signals being 
passed down the line by each man nudging his 

35 



The Road to Glory 

neighbor. So admirably executed were Perry's 
orders that the Americans, moving forward with 
the stealth and silence of panthers, had reached 
the outer line of the enemy's intrenchments, had 
bayonetted the Spanish sentries, and had actu- 
ally hauled down the Spanish flag and replaced it 
with the Republican tricolor before their presence 
was discovered. Though taken completely by 
surprise, the Spaniards rallied and drove the 
Americans from the works, but the latter reformed 
and hurled themselves forward in a smashing 
charge which drove the Spaniards from the field, 
leaving upward of a thousand dead, wounded, 
and prisoners behind them. The American loss 
in killed and wounded was something under a 
hundred. 

Returning in triumph to San Antonio, the 
Americans, whose position was now so firmly es- 
tablished that they had no further use for Gen- 
eral Gutierrez, unceremoniously dismissed him, 
this action, doubtless, being taken at the instance 
of Colonel Perry and his fellow officers, who feared 
further treachery and dishonor if the Mexican 
were permitted to remain in command. His place 
was taken by Don Jose Alvarez Toledo, a distin- 
guished Cuban who had formerly been a member 
of the Spanish Cortes in Mexico but had been 

36 



Adventurers All 

banished on account of his repubUcan sympathies. 
A few weeks after General Toledo assumed com- 
mand a Spanish force, four thousand strong, under 
General Arredondo, appeared before San Antonio. 
Toledo at once marched out to meet them. His 
force consisted of eight hundred and fifty Americans 
under Colonel Perry and about twice that number 
of Mexicans; so it will be seen that the Spaniards 
greatly outnumbered the Republicans. Throw- 
ing forward a line of skirmishers for the purpose 
of engaging the enemy, General Arredondo am- 
bushed the major portion of his force behind 
earthworks masked by the dense chaparral. 
The Americans, confident of victory, dashed for- 
ward with their customary elauy whereupon the 
Spanish line, in obedience to Arredondo's orders, 
sullenly fell back. So cleverly did the Spaniards 
feign retreat that it was not until the Americans 
were well within the trap that had been set for 
them that Toledo recognized his peril. Then he 
frantically ordered his buglers to sound the recall. 
One column — that composed of Mexicans — obeyed 
the order promptly, but the other, consisting of 
Americans, shouting, "No, we never retreat!" 
swept forward to their deaths. Had the order 
to retreat never been given, the Americans, not- 
withstanding the disparity of numbers, would 

37 



The Road to Glory 

have been victorious, but, deprived of all support 
and raked by the enemy's cannon and musketry, 
even the prodigies of valor they performed were 
unavailing to alter the result. So desperately did 
those American adventurers fight, however, that, 
as some one has remarked, "they made Spanish 
the language of hell." When their rifles were 
empty they used their pistols, and when their 
pistols were empty they used their terrible long 
hunting-knives, ripping and stabbing and slash- 
ing with those vicious weapons until they went 
down before sheer weight of numbers. Some of 
them, grasping their empty rifles by the barrel, 
swung them round their heads like flails, beating 
down the Spaniards who opposed them until they 
were surrounded by heaps of men with cracked 
and shattered skulls. Others, when their weapons 
broke, sprang at their enemies with their naked 
hands and tore out their throats as hounds tear 
out the throat of a deer. Such was the battle of 
the Medina, fought on August i8, 1813. Of the 
eight hundred and fifty Americans who went into 
action only ninety-three came out alive. If the 
battle itself was a bloody one, its aftermath was 
even more so, the Spanish cavalry pursuing and 
butchering without mercy all the fugitives they 
could overtake. At Spanish BlufF, on the Trin- 

38 



Adventurers All 

ity, the Spaniards took eighty prisoners. March- 
ing them into a clump of timber, they dug a long, 
deep trench and, setting the prisoners on its edge, 
shot them in groups of ten. It was a bloody, 
bloody business. That our histories contain al- 
most no mention of the Gachupin War, as this 
campaign was known, is doubtless due to the fact 
that during the same period there was a war in 
the United States and also one in Mexico, and the 
public mind was thus drawn away from the events 
w^hich were taking place in Texas. Indeed, had 
it not been for the war between the United States 
and Great Britain, which drew into its vortex the 
adventurous spirits of the Southwest, Texas would 
have achieved her independence a dozen years 
earlier than she did. 

Toledo and Perry, with all that was left of the 
*'Army of the North," escaped, after suffering 
fearful hardships, to the United States, where they 
promptly began to recruit men for another ven- 
ture into the beckoning land beyond the Sabine. 
Though the head of the patriot priest Hidalgo 
had been displayed by the Spanish authorities 
on the walls of the citadel of Guanajuato as "a 
warning to Mexicans who choose to revolt against 
Spanish rule,'' as the placard attached to the 
grisly trophy read, the grim object-lesson had not 

39 



The Road to Glory 

deterred another priest, Jose Maria Morelos, from 
taking up the struggle for Mexican independence 
where Hidalgo had laid it down. 'In order to 
co-operate with this new champion of liberty, 
Toledo, at the head of a few hundred Americans, 
sailed from New Orleans, landed on the Mexican 
coast near Vera Cruz, and pushed up-country as 
far as El Puente del Rey, near Jalapa, where he 
intrenched himself and sat down to await the ar- 
rival of reinforcements from New Orleans under 
General Jean Joseph Humbert. 

Humbert, a Frenchman from the province of 
Lorraine, was a graduate of the greatest school 
for fighters the world has ever known: the armies 
of Napoleon. In 1789, when the French Revolu- 
tion deluged France with blood, he was a mer- 
chant in Rouvray. Closing his shop, he ex- 
changed his yardstick for a sabre and went to 
Paris to take a hand in the overthrow of the 
monarchy, for he was a red-hot republican. His 
gallantry in action won him a major-general's 
commission, and four years later the Directory 
promoted him to the rank of lieutenant-general 
and gave him command of the expedition sent to 
Ireland, where he was forced to surrender to 
Lord Cornwallis. Napoleon, who knew a soldier 
as far as he could see one, made Humbert a gen- 

40 



Adventurers All 

eral of division and second in command of the 
ill-fated army sent to Haiti. But Humbert's 
republican convictions did not jibe with the im- 
perialistic ambitions of Napoleon, and the former 
suddenly decided that a life of exile in America 
was preferable to life in a French prison. For a 
time he supported himself by teaching in New 
Orleans, but it was like harnessing a war-horse 
to a plough; so, when the Mexican junta sought 
his aid in 1814, the veteran fighter raised an ex- 
peditionary force of nearly a thousand men, sailed 
across the Gulf, landed on the shores of Mexico, 
and marched up to join Toledo at El Puente del 
Rey. The revolutionary leader Morelos, who was 
hard pressed by the Spaniards, set out to join 
Toledo and Humbert, but on the way was taken 
prisoner and died with his back to a stone wall 
and his face to a firing-party. The same force 
which ended the career of Morelos continued to 
El Puente del Rey and attempted to cut off the 
retreat of Toledo and Humbert, but the old sol- 
dier of Napoleon succeeded in cutting his way 
through them and in 1817, dejected and discour- 
aged, landed once more at New Orleans, where 
he spent the rest of his days teaching in a French 
college, and his nights, no doubt, dreaming of his 
exploits under the Napoleonic eagles. 

41 



The Road to Glory 

The same year Humbert returned to New 
Orleans another soldier of the empire, General 
Baron Charles Francois Antoine Lallemand, fol- 
lowed by a hundred and fifty veterans who had 
seen service under the little corporal, set out from 
the same city for that graveyard of ambitions, 
Mexico. Baron Lallemand was one of the great 
soldiers of the empire and, had Napoleon been vic- 
torious at Waterloo, would have been rewarded 
with the baton of a marshal of France. Enter- 
ing the army when a youngster of eighteen, he 
followed the French eagles into every capital of 
Europe, fighting his way up the ladder of promo- 
tion, round by round, until, upon the Emperor's 
return from Elba, he was given the epaulets of 
a lieutenant-general and created a peer of France. 
He commanded the artillery of the Imperial 
Guard at Waterloo and after that disaster was 
sent by the Emperor to Captain Maitland, of 
the British navy, to negotiate for his surrender. 
With tears streaming down his cheeks, Lallemand 
begged that he might be permitted to accompany 
his imperial master into exile. This being denied 
him, he refused to take service under the Bour- 
bons and, coming to America, attempted to found 
a colony of French political refugees in Alabama, 
at a place which, in memory of happier days, he 

42 



Adventurers All 

named Marengo. The experiment proved a fail- 
ure, however; so in 1817 he led his colonists into 
Texas and attempted to establish what he termed 
a Champ d'Asile on the banks of the Trinity 
River. But the Spanish authorities, obsessed with 
the idea that every foreigner who appeared in 
Texas was plotting against them, despatched a 
force against Lallemand and his colonists and 
drove them out. The next few years General Lal- 
lemand spent in New Orleans devising schemes for 
effecting the escape of his beloved Emperor from 
St. Helena, but Napoleon's death, in 1821, brought 
his carefully laid plan for a rescue to naught. In 
1830, upon the Bourbons being ejected from 
France for good and all, Lallemand, to whom 
the Emperor had left a legacy of a hundred thou- 
sand francs, returned to Paris. His civil and 
military honors were restored by Louis PhiHppe, 
and the man who a few years before had been 
pointed out on the streets of New Orleans as a 
fiUbuster and an adventurer died a general of 
division, commander of the Legion of Honor, 
military governor of Corsica, and a peer of 
France. 

The next man to strike a blow for Texas was 
Don Luis de Aury. De Aury was a native of New 
Granada, as the present Republic of Colombia was 

43 



The Road to Glory 

then called, and had played a brilHant part in the 
struggle for freedom of Spain's South American 
colonies. He entered the navy of the young re- 
public as a lieutenant in 1813. Three years later 
he was appointed commandant-general of the 
naval forces of New Granada, stationed at Car- 
tagena. At the memorable siege of that city, to 
his generosity and intrepidity hundreds of men, 
women, and children owed their lives, for when 
the Spanish commander, Morillo, threatened to 
butcher every person found alive within the city 
walls De Aury loaded the non-combatants aboard 
his three small vessels, broke through the Spanish 
squadron of thirty-five ships and landed his pas- 
sengers in safety. For this heroic exploit he was 
rewarded with the rank of commodore, given the 
command of the united fleets of New Granada, 
La Plata, Venezuela, and Mexico, and ordered to 
sweep Spanish commerce from the Gulf. Learn- 
ing of the splendid harbor afforded by the Bay of 
Galveston, on the coast of Texas, he determined to 
occupy it and use it as a base of operations against 
the Spanish. Accompanied by Don Jose Herrera, 
the agent of the Mexican revolutionists in the 
United States, De Aury landed on Galveston Is- 
land in September, 1816. A meeting was held, a 
government organized, the RepubHcan flag raised, 

44 



Adventurers All 

Galveston was declared a part of the Mexican 
Republic, and De Aury was chosen civil and mili- 
tary governor of Texas and Galveston Island. 

Here he was shortly joined by two other ad- 
venturers: our old friend, Colonel Perry, who had 
escaped to the United States after the disaster of 
the Medina, and Francisco Xavier Mina, a sol- 
dier of fortune from Navarre. Mina's parents, 
who were peasant farmers, had destined him for 
the law, but when Napoleon invaded Spain, young 
Mina threw away his law books, raised a band of 
guerillas, and harassed the invaders until his name 
became a terror to the French. He was captured 
in 1812 and, after several years in a French prison, 
went to England, where he made the acquaintance 
of a number of Mexican political exiles, who in- 
duced him to take a hand in freeing their native 
country. In September, 1816, Mina's expedition, 
consisting of two hundred infantry and a battery 
of artillery, sailed from Baltimore for Galveston, 
where he found De Aury with some four hundred 
well-drilled men and Colonel Perry with a hun- 
dred more. In March, 1817, the three com- 
manders sailed for the mouth of the Rio San- 
tander, fifty miles up the Mexican coast from 
Tampico, and disembarked their forces at the 
river bar. The town of Soto la Marina, sixty 

45 



The Road to Glory 

miles from the river's mouth, fell without opposi- 
tion, and with its fall the leaders parted company. 
De Aury returned to Galveston, but, finding the 
pirate Lafitte in possession, sailed away in search 
of pastures new. Mina, ambitious for further 
conquests, marched into the interior, capturing 
Valle de Mais, Peotillos, Real de Rinos, and Vena- 
dito in rapid succession. At Venadito, however, 
his streak of good fortune ended as suddenly as 
it had begun, for while his men were scattered in 
search of plunder a Spanish force recaptured the 
town and made Mina a prisoner. So relieved was 
the Spanish Government at receiving word of his 
capture and execution that it ordered the church- 
bells to be rung in every town in Mexico and made 
the viceroy a count. 

When Colonel Perry learned of Mina's plan for 
marching into the interior with the small force at 
his disposal, he flatly refused to have anything to 
do with so harebrained a business and, with fifty 
of his men, started up the coast in an attempt 
to make his way back to the United States. As 
the disastrous retreat began in May, when water 
was scarce and the heat in the swampy lowlands 
was almost unbearable, they suffered terribly. Just 
as the little band of adventurers reached the bor- 
ders of Texas and were congratulating themselves 

46 



Adventurers All 

on having all but won to safety, a party of two 
hundred Spanish cavalry suddenly appeared. 
Perry, throwing his men into line of battle, re- 
ceived the onslaught of the lancers with a volley 
which checked them in mid-career and would 
doubtless have ended the contest then and there 
had not the garrison of the near-by town sallied 
out and taken the Americans in the rear. Clothed 
in rags, scorched by the sun, parched from thirst, 
half starved, surrounded by an overwhelming 
foe, gallantly did these desperate men sustain 
their reputation for valor. Again and again the 
lancers swept down upon them, again and again 
the garrison attacked them in the rear, but al- 
ways from the thinning line of heroes spat a storm 
of lead so deadly that the Spaniards could not 
stand before it. Blackened with smoke and pow- 
der, fainting from hunger and exhaustion, bleed- 
ing from innumerable wounds, the adventurers 
fought like men who welcomed death. The sun 
had disappeared; the shadows of night were 
gathering thick upon the plain; but still a hand- 
ful of powder-grimed, blood-streaked men, stand- 
ing back to back, amid a ring of dead and dying, 
held ofF the enemy. As the darkness deepened, 
a single gallant figure still waved a defiant sword: 
it was Perry, who, true to the filibusters' motto 

47 



The Road to Glory 

that "Americans never surrender," fell by his 
own hand. 

Probably the most remarkable of this long list 
of adventurers was the Jean Lafitte whom De 
Aury found in possession of Galveston. A French- 
man by birth and an American by adoption, 
he and his brother Pierre had, during the 
early years of the century, established on Bara- 
taria Island, near the mouth of the Mississippi, 
what was virtually a pirate kingdom, where they 
drove a thriving trade with the planters along 
the upper river and the merchants of New Or- 
leans in smuggled slaves and merchandise. Al- 
though both the State and federal authorities had 
madfe repeated attempts to dislodge them, the 
Lafittes were at the height of their prosperity 
when the second war with England began. When 
the British armada destined for the conquest of 
Louisiana arrived ofF the Mississippi, late in 1814, 
an officer was sent to Jean Lafitte offering him 
fifty thousand dollars and a captain's commission 
in the royal navy if he would co-operate with the 
British in the capture of New Orleans. Though 
Governor Claiborne, of Louisiana, had set a price 
on his head, Lafitte, who was, it seemed, a pa- 
triot first and a pirate afterward, hastened up the 
river to New Orleans, warned the governor of the 

48 



Adventurers All 

approach of the British fleet, and offered his ser- 
vices and those of his men to Andrew Jackson for 
the defense of the city. His offer was accepted 
in the spirit in which it was made, and Lafitte 
and his red-shirted buccaneers played no small 
part in winning the famous victory. They were 
mentioned in despatches by Jackson, thanked for 
their services by the President and pardoned, and 
settled down for a time to a lawful and humdrum 
existence. But for such men a life of ease and 
safety held no attractions; so, about the time that 
De Aury's squadron sailed for Soto la Marina, 
Lafitte, with half-a-dozen vessels, dropped casu- 
ally into the harbor of Galveston and, as the 
place suited him, coolly took possession. 

By the close of 1817 the followers of Lafitte on 
Galveston Island had increased to upward of a 
thousand men. They were of all nations and all 
languages — fugitives from justice and fugitives 
from oppression. Those of them who had wives 
brought them to the settlement at Galveston, and 
those who had no wives brought their mistresses, 
so that the society of the place, whatever may be 
said of its morals, began to assume an air of per- 
manency. On the site of the hut occupied by 
the late governor, De Aury, Lafitte erected a pre- 
tentious house and built a fort; other buildings 

49 



The Road to Glory 

sprang up, among them a "Yankee" boarding- 
house, and, to complete the estabUshment, a small 
arsenal and dockyard were constructed. To lend 
an air of respectability to his enterprise, Lafitte 
obtained privateering commissions from several 
of the revolted colonies of Spain, and for several 
years his cruisers, first under one flag and then 
under another, conducted operations in the Gulf 
which smacked considerably more of piracy than 
of privateering. In 1819 Lafitte was taken into 
the service of the Republican party in Mexico, 
Galveston was officially made a port of entry, and 
he was appointed governor of the island. 

By the terms of the treaty whereby Spain, in 
1 8 19, sold Florida to the United States, the lat- 
ter agreed to accept the Sabine as its western 
boundary and make no further claims to Texas. 
Though this treaty aroused the most profound 
indignation throughout the Southwest, nowhere 
did it rise so high as in the town of Natchez. 
From Natchez had gone out each of the expedi- 
tions which, since the days of Philip Nolan, had 
hammered against the Spanish barriers. To it 
had returned every leader who had escaped death 
on the battle-field or before a firing-party. In it, 
as a great river town enjoying a vast trade with 
the interior, was gathered the most reckless, law- 

50 



Adventurers All 

less, enterprising population — flatboatmen, steam- 
boatmen, frontiersmen — to be found in all the 
Southwest. So, when Doctor James Long, an 
army surgeon who had served under Jackson at 
New Orleans, called for recruits to make one more 
attempt to free Texas, he did not call in vain. 
Early in June Long set out from Natchez with 
only seventy-five men, but no sooner had he 
crossed the Sabine and entered Texas than the 
survivors of former expeditions hastened to join 
him, so that when Nacogdoches was reached he 
had behind him upward of three hundred men: 
veterans who had seen service under Nolan and 
Magee, and Kemper, and Gutierrez, and Toledo, 
and Humbert, and Perry, and MIna, and De Aury. 
At Nacogdoches Long established a provisional 
government, a supreme council was elected, and 
Texas was proclaimed a free and Independent 
republic. Realizing, however, that he could not 
hope to hold the territory thus easily occupied 
for any length of time unaided, Long despatched 
a commission to Galveston to ask the co-opera- 
tion of Lafitte. Though the pirate chieftain re- 
ceived the commissioners with marked courtesy 
and entertained them at the " Red House," as his 
residence was called, with the lavish hospitality 
for which he was noted, he told them bluntly 

51 



The Road to Glory 

that, though Doctor Long had his best wishes for 
success, the fate of Nolan and Perry and Mina 
and a host of others ought to convince him how 
hopeless it was to wage war against Spain with 
so insignificant a force. Upon receiving this an- 
swer. Doctor Long, believing that a personal ap- 
plication to the buccaneer might meet with bet- 
ter success, himself set out for Galveston. As 
luck would have it, he reached there on the same 
day that the American warship Enterprise dropped 
anchor in the harbor and its commander. Lieu- 
tenant Kearney, informed Lafitte that he had im- 
perative orders from Washington to break up the 
establishment at Galveston. There was nothing 
left for Lafitte but to obey, and a few days later 
the rising tide carried outside Galveston bar the 
Pride and the other vessels comprising the fleet 
of the last of the buccaneers, who abandoned the 
shores of Texas forever.* 

Doctor Long, thoroughly discouraged, returned 
to Nacogdoches to find a Spanish army close at 
hand and his own forces completely demoraHzed. 
Surrounded and outnumbered, resistance was use- 
less and he surrendered. Though Spanish do- 

* A full account of the life and exploits of Jean Lafitte will be 
found under "The Pirate Who Turned Patriot," in Mr. Powell's 
"Gentlemen Rovers." 

52 



Adventurers All 

minion in Mexico was now at an end, Doctor 
Long and a number of his companions were sent 
to the capital, where for several months he was 
held a prisoner, the vigorous representations of 
the American minister finally resulting in his re- 
lease. The Mexicans had no more intention than 
the Spaniards, however, of permitting Texas to 
achieve independence, which, doubtless, accounts 
for the fact that Doctor Long, who was known 
as a champion of Texan liberty, was assassinated 
by a soldier in the streets of the capital a few 
days after his release from prison. But he and 
the long line of adventurers who preceded him 
did not fight and die in vain, for they paved the 
way for the Austins and Sam Houston, the final 
liberators of Texas, who, a few years later, crossed 
the Sabine and completed the work that Nolan, 
Magee, Kemper, Gutierrez, Toledo, Humbert, 
Perry, Mina, De Aury, and Long had begun. 
As for Lafitte, the most picturesque adventurer 
of them all, he sailed away from Galveston and, 
following the example of that long Hne of buc- 
caneers of whom he was the last, spent his latter 
years in harrying the commerce of the Dons upon 
the Spanish main. Along the palm-fringed Gulf 
coast his memory still survives, and at night the 
superstitious sailors sometimes claim to see the 

53 



The Road to Glory 

ghostly spars of his rakish craft and to hear, 
borne by the night breeze, the rumble of his dis- 
tant cannonading. 

"The palmetto leaves are whispering, while the gentle 

trade-winds blow, 
And the soothing Southern zephyrs are sighing soft 

and low. 
As a silvery moonlight glistens, and the droning 

fireflies glow. 
Comes a voice from out the cypress, 
'Lights out ! Lafitte ! Heave ho !"* 



54 



WHEN WE SMASHED THE PROPHET'S 

POWER 



WHEN WE SMASHED THE PROPHET'S 

POWER 

IT is a curious and interesting fact that, just as 
in the year 1754 a coUision between French 
and EngHsh scouting parties on the banks of the 
Youghiogheny River, deep in the American wil- 
derness, began a war that changed the map of 
Europe, so in 181 1 a battle on the banks of the 
Wabash between Americans and Indians started 
an avalanche which ended by crushing Napoleon. 
The nineteenth century was still in its swad- 
dhng-clothes at the time this story opens; the war 
of the Revolution had been over barely a quarter 
of a century, and a second war with England was 
shortly to begin. Though the borders of the 
United States nominally extended to the Rockies, 
the banks of the Mississippi really marked the 
outermost picket-line of civilization. Beyond that 
lay a vast and virgin wilderness, inconceivably 
rich in minerals, game, and timber, but still in 
the power of more or less hostile tribes of Indians. 
Up to 1800 the whole of that region lying beyond 
the Ohio, including the present States of Indiana, 

57 



The Road to Glory 

Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and Missouri, 
was officially designated as the Northwest Terri- 
tory, but in that year the northern half of this 
region was organized as the Indian Territory, or, 
as it came to be known in time, the Territory of 
Indiana. 

The governor of this great province was a 
young man named William Henry Harrison. 
This youth — he was only twenty-seven at the 
time of his appointment — was invested with one 
of the most extraordinary commissions ever is- 
sued by our government. In addition to being the 
governor of a Territory whose area was greater 
than that of the German Empire, he was com- 
mander-in-chief of the Territorial militia, Indian 
agent, land commissioner, and sole lawgiver. 
He had the power to adopt from the statutes 
upon the books of any of the States any and 
every law which he deemed applicable to the 
needs of the Territory. He appointed all the 
judges and other civil officials and all military 
officers below the rank of general. He possessed 
and exercised the authority to divide the Terri- 
tory into counties and townships. He held the 
prerogative of pardon. His decision as to the 
validity of existing land grants, many of which 
were technically worthless, was final, and his sig- 

58 



The Prophet's Power 

nature upon a title was a remedy for all defects. 
As the representative of the United States in its 
relations with the Indians, he held the power 
to negotiate treaties and to make treaty pay- 
ments. 

Governor Harrison was admittedly the highest 
authority on the northwestern Indians. He kept 
his fingers constantly on the pulse of Indian senti- 
ment and opinion and often said that he could 
forecast by the conduct of his Indians, as a mari- 
ner forecasts the weather by the aid of a barom- 
eter, the chances of war and peace for the United 
States so far as they were controlled by the cabi- 
net in London. The remark, though curious, was 
not surprising. Uneasiness would naturally be 
greatest in regions where the greatest irritation 
existed and which were under the least control. 
Such a danger spot was the Territory of Indiana. 
It occupied a remote and perilous position, for 
northward and westward the Indian country 
stretched to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, 
unbroken save by the military posts at Fort 
Wayne and Fort Dearborn (now Chicago) and a 
considerable settlement of whites in the vicinity 
of Detroit. Some five thousand Indian warriors 
held this vast region and were abundantly able 
to expel every white man from Indiana if their 

59 



The Road to Glory 

organization had been as strong as their numbers. 
And the whites were no less eager to expel the 
Indians. 

No acid ever ate more resistlessly into a vege- 
table substance than the white man acted on the 
Indian. As the line of American settlements ap- 
proached the nearest Indian tribes shrunk and 
withered away. The most serious of the evils 
which attended the contact of the two hostile 
races was the introduction by the whites of whiskey 
among the Indians. "I can tell at once," wrote 
Harrison about this time, **upon looking at an 
Indian whom I may chance to meet, whether he 
belongs to a neighboring or a more distant tribe. 
The latter is generally well-clothed, healthy, and 
vigorous; the former half-naked, filthy, and en- 
feebled by intoxication." Another cause of In- 
dian resentment was that the white man, though 
not permitted to settle beyond the Indian border, 
could not be prevented from trespassing far and 
wide on Indian territory in quest of game. This 
practice of hunting on Indian lands in direct vio- 
lation of law and of existing treaties had, indeed, 
grown into a monstrous abuse and did more than 
anything else, perhaps, to fan the flame of In- 
dian hostility toward the whites. Every autumn 
great numbers of Kentucky settlers used to cross 

60 



The Prophet's Power 

the Ohio River into the Indian country to hunt 
deer, bear, and buffalo for their skins, which they 
had no more right to take than they had to cross 
the AUeghanies and shoot the cows and sheep 
belonging to the Pennsylvania farmers. As a re- 
sult of this systematic slaughter of the game, 
many parts of the Northwest Territory became 
worthless to the Indians as hunting-grounds, and 
the tribes that owned them were forced either to 
sell them to the government for supplies or for 
an annuity or to remove elsewhere. The In- 
dians had still another cause for complaint. Ac- 
cording to the terms of the treaties, if an Indian 
killed a white man the tribe was bound to sur- 
render the murderer for trial in an American 
court; while, if a white man killed an Indian, the 
murderer was also to be tried by a white jury. 
The Indians surrendered their murderers, and the 
white juries at Vincennes unhesitatingly hung 
them; but, though Harrison reported innumerable 
cases of wanton and atrocious murders of Indians 
by white men, no white man was ever convicted 
by a territorial jury for these crimes. So far as 
the white man was concerned, it was a case of 
"Heads I win, tails you lose." The opinion that 
prevailed along the frontier was expressed in the 
frequent assertion that "the only good Indian is 

6i 



The Road to Glory 

a dead one," and in the face of such public opin- 
ion there was no chance of the Indian getting a 
square deal. 

As a result of these outrages and injustices, the 
thoughts of the Indians turned longingly toward 
the days when this region was held by France. 
Had Napoleon carried out his Louisiana scheme 
of 1802, there is no possible doubt that he would 
have received the active support of every Indian 
tribe from the Gulf to the Great Lakes; his 
orders would have been obeyed from Tallahassee 
to Detroit. When affairs in Europe compelled him 
to abandon his contemplated American campaign, 
the Indians turned to the British for sympathy 
and assistance — and the British were only too 
glad to extend them a friendly hand. From 
Maiden, opposite Detroit, the British traders 
loaded the American Indians with^gifts and weap- 
ons; the governor-general of Canada intrigued 
with the more powerful chieftains and assured 
himself of their support in the war which was ap- 
proaching; British emissaries circulated among the 
tribes, and by specious arguments inflamed their 
hostility toward Americans. Indeed, it is no ex- 
aggeration to say that, had our people and our 
government treated the Indians with the most 
elementary justice and honesty, they would have 

62 



The Prophet's Power 

had their support in the War of 1812, the whole 
course of that disastrous war would probably have 
been changed, and the Canadian boundary would, 
in all likehhood, have been pushed far to the 
northward. By their persistent ill treatment of 
the Indians the Americans received what they 
had every reason to expect and what they fully 
deserved. 

During the first decade of the nineteenth cen- 
tury there was really no perfect peace with any 
of the Indian tribes west of the Ohio, and Harri- 
son's abilities as a soldier and a diplomatist were 
taxed to the utmost to prevent the skirmish-line, 
as the chain of settlements and trading-posts 
which marked our westernmost frontier might well 
be called, from being turned into a battle-ground. 
Harrison's most formidable opponent in his task 
of civilizing the West was the Shawnee chief- 
tain Tecumseh, perhaps the most remarkable of 
American Indians. Though not a chieftain by 
birth, Tecumseh had risen by the strength of his 
personality and his powers as an orator to a po- 
sition of altogether extraordinary influence and 
power among his people. So great was his repu- 
tation for bravery in battle and wisdom in coun- 
cil that by 1809 he had attained the unique dis- 
tinction of being, to all intents and purposes, the 

63 



The Road to Glory 

political leader of all the Indians between the 
Ohio and the Mississippi. 

With the vision of a prophet, Tecumseh saw that 
if this immense territory was once opened to set- 
tlement by whites the game upon which the In- 
dians had to depend for sustenance must soon be 
exterminated and that in a few years his people 
would have to move to stirange and distant hunt- 
ing-grounds. Taking this as his text, he preached 
a gospel of armed resistance to the white man's 
encroachments at every tribal council-fire from 
the land of the Chippewas to the country of the 
Creeks. And he had good reasons for his warn- 
ings, for the Indians were being stripped of their 
lands in shameless fashion. In fact, the Indian 
agents were deliberately ordered to tempt the 
tribal chiefs into debt in order to oblige them to 
sell the tribal lands, which did not belong to 
them, but to their tribes. The callousness of the 
government's Indian policy was frankly expressed 
by President Jefferson in a letter to Harrison in 
1803: 

"To promote this disposition to exchange lands 
which they have to spare and we want for neces- 
saries which we have to spare and they want we 
shall push our trading houses and be glad to see 
the good and influential individuals among them 

64 



The Prophet's Power 

In debt; because we observe that when these 
debts get beyond what the individuals can pay 
they become wilHng to lop them off by a cession 
of lands." 

The tone of cynicism, inhumanity, and greed 
which characterizes that letter makes it sound 
more like the utterance of a usurious money- 
lender than an official communication to a Terri- 
torial governor from the President of the United 
States. It is hard to believe that it was penned 
by the same hand which wrote the Declaration of 
Independence. 

Jefferson's Indian policy was continued by his 
successor, for in 1809 Governor Harrison, acting 
under instructions from President Madison, con- 
cluded a treaty with the chiefs of the Delaware, 
Pottawatomie, Miami, Eel River, Wea, and Kick- 
apoo tribes, whereby, in consideration of eight 
thousand two hundred dollars paid down and an- 
nuities amounting to two thousand three hundred 
and fifty more, he obtained the cession of three 
million acres of land. Think of it, my friends ! 
Perhaps the most fertile land in all the world 
sold at the rate of three acres for a cent! It was 
like stealing candy from a child. Do you won- 
der that Tecumseh declared the treaty void, de- 
nounced as traitors to their race the chiefs who 

65 



The Road to Glory 

made it, and asserted that it was not in the 
power of individual tribes to deed away the com- 
mon domain ? This was the basis of Tecumseh's 
scheme for a general federation of all the Indians, 
which, had it not been smashed in its early stages, 
would have drenched our frontiers with blood and 
would have set back the civilization of the West 
a quarter of a century. 

Throughout his campaign of proselytism Te- 
cumseh was ably seconded by one of his triplet 
brothers, Elkswatana, known among the Indians 
as "the prophet." The latter, profiting by the 
credulity and superstition of the red men, ob- 
tained a great reputation as a medicine-man and 
seer by means of his charms, incantations, and 
pretended visions of the Great Spirit, thus mak- 
ing himself a most valuable ally of Tecumseh in 
the great conspiracy which the latter was secretly 
hatching. Meanwhile the relations between the 
Americans and their neighbors across the Ca- 
nadian border had become strained almost to the 
breaking point, the situation being aggravated by 
the fact that the British were secretly encourag- 
ing Tecumseh in spreading his propaganda of re- 
sistance to the United States and were covertly 
supplying the Indians with arms and ammuni- 
tion for the purpose. The winter of 1809-10, 

66 



The Prophet's Power 

therefore, was marked by Indian outrages along 
the whole length of the frontier. And there were 
other agencies, more remote but none the less ef- 
fective, at work creating discontent among the 
Indians. It seems a far cry from the prairies to 
the Tuileries, from an Indian warrior to a French 
Emperor, but when Napoleon's decree of what 
was virtually a universal blockade imposed ter- 
rible hardships on American shipping as well as 
on the British commerce at which it was aimed, 
even the savage of the wilderness was affected. 
It clogged and almost closed the chief markets for 
his furs, and prices dropped so low that Indian 
hunters were hardly able to purchase the pow- 
der and shot with which to kill their game. At 
the beginning of 1810, therefore, the Indians were 
ripe for any enterprise that promised them relief 
and independence. 

In the spring of 1808 Tecumseh, the prophet, 
and their followers had established themselves on 
the banks of the Wabash, near the mouth of the 
Tippecanoe River, about seven miles to the north 
of the present site of Lafayette, Indiana. Stra- 
tegically, the situation was admirably chosen, for 
Vincennes, where Harrison had his headquarters, 
lay one hundred and fifty miles below and could 
be reached in four and twenty hours by canoe 

67 



The Road to Glory 

down the Wabash; Fort Dearborn was a hun- 
dred miles to the northwest; Fort Wayne the 
same distance to the northeast; and, barring a 
short portage, the Indians could paddle their 
canoes to Detroit in one direction or to any 
part of the Ohio or the Mississippi in the other. 
Thus they were within striking distance of the 
chief military posts on the frontier and within 
easy reach of their British friends at Maiden. 
On this spot the Indians, in obedience to a com- 
mand which the prophet professed to have re- 
ceived in a dream from the Great Spirit, built a 
sort of model village, where they assiduously tilled 
the soil and shunned the fire-water of the whites. 
For a year or more after the establishment of 
Prophet's Town, as the place was called, things 
went quietly enough, but when it became known 
that Harrison had obtained the cession of the 
three million acres in the valley of the Wabash 
already referred to, the smouldering resentment 
of Tecumseh and his followers was fanned into 
flame, the Indians refusing to receive the "an- 
nuity salt" sent them in accordance with the 
terms of the treaty and threatened to kill the 
boatmen who brought it, whom they called 
"American dogs." 

Early in the following summer Harrison sent 

68 



The Prophet's Power 

word to Tecumseh that he would Hke to see him, 
and on August 12, 18 10, the Indian chief with 
four hundred armed warriors arrived at the gov- 
ernor's headquarters at Vincennes. The meeting 
between the white man who stood for civiHza- 
tion and the red man who stood for savagery- 
took place in a field outside the stockaded town. 
The youthful governor, short of stature, lean of 
body, and stern of face, sat in a chair under a 
spreading tree, surrounded by a group of his 
officials: army officers. Territorial judges, scouts, 
interpreters, and agents. Opposite him, ranged 
in a semicircle on the ground, were Tecumseh, 
his brother, the prophet, and a score or more of 
chiefs, while back of them, row after row of 
blanketed forms and grim, bepainted faces, sat 
his four hundred fighting men. Tecumseh had 
been warned that his braves must come to the 
conference unarmed, and to all appearances they 
were weaponless, but no one knew better than 
Harrison that concealed beneath the folds of each 
warrior's blanket was a tomahawk and a scalp- 
ing-knife. Nor, aware as he was of the danger 
of Indian treachery, had he neglected to take 
precautions, for the garrison of the town was 
under arms, the muzzles of field-guns peered 
through apertures in the log stockade, and a few 

69 



The Road to Glory 

paces away from the council, ready to open fire 
at the first sign of danger, were a score of sol- 
diers with loaded rifles. 

In reply to Harrison's formal greeting, Tecum- 
seh rose to his feet, presenting a most striking 
and impressive figure as he stood, drawn to his 
full height, with folded arms and granite features, 
the sunlight playing on his copper-colored skin, 
on his belt and moccasins of beaded buckskin, 
and on the single eagle's feather which slanted 
in his hair. The address of the famous warrior 
statesman consisted of a recital of the wrongs 
which the Indian had suffered at the hands of 
the white man. It was a story of chicanery and 
spoliation and oppression which Tecumseh told, 
and those who listened to it, white men and red 
alike, knew that it was very largely true. He 
told how the Indians, the real owners of the land, 
had been steadily driven westward and ever west- 
ward, first beyond the Alleghanies, and then be- 
yond the Ohio, and now beyond the Missouri. 
He told how the white men had attempted to 
create dissension among the Indians to prevent 
their uniting, how they had bribed the stronger 
tribes and coerced the weaker, how again and 
again they had tried to goad the Indians into 
committing some overt act that they might use 

70 



The Prophet's Power 

it as an excuse for seizing more of their land. 
He told how the whites, jeering at the sacredness 
of treaty obligations, systematically debauched 
the Indians by selHng them whiskey; how they 
trespassed on the Indians' lands and slaughtered 
the game on which the Indians depended for sup- 
port; of how, when the Indians protested, they 
were often slaughtered, too; and of how the 
white men's courts, instead of condemning the 
criminal, usually ended by congratulating him. 
He declared that things had come to a pass 
where the Indians must fight or perish, that the 
Indians were one people and that the lands be- 
longing to them as a race could not be disposed 
of by individual tribes, that an Indian confed- 
eracy had been formed which both could and 
would fight every step of the white man's fur- 
ther advance. As Tecumseh continued, his pro- 
nunciation became more guttural, his terms 
harsher, his gestures more excited, his argument 
changed into a warlike harangue. He played 
upon the Indian portion of his audience as a 
maestro plays upon a violin, until, their passions 
mastering their discretion, they sprang to their 
feet with a whoop, brandishing their tomahawks 
and knives. In the flutter of an eyelash every- 
thing was in confusion. The waiting soldiers 

71 



The Road to Glory 

dashed forward like sprinters, cocking their rifles 
as they ran. The officers jerked loose their 
swords, and the frontiersmen snatched up their 
long-barrelled weapons. But Harrison was quick- 
est of all, for, drawing and cocking a pistol with 
a single motion, he thrust its muzzle squarely 
into Tecumseh's face. "Call off your men," he 
thundered, "or you're a dead Indian!" Tecum- 
seh, reahzing that he had overplayed his part 
and appreciating that this was an occasion when 
discretion was of more avail than valor, motioned 
to his warriors, and they silently and sullenly 
withdrew. 

But it was no part of Tecumseh's plan or of 
the British who were behind him to bring on a 
war at this time, when their preparations were 
as yet incomplete; so the following morning 
Tecumseh, who had little to learn about the game 
of diplomacy, called on Harrison, expressed with 
apparent sincerity his regret for the violence into 
which his young men had been led by his words, 
and asked to have the council resumed. Harri- 
son well knew the great abihty and influence of 
Tecumseh and was anxious to conciliate him, for, 
truth to tell, the Americans were no more pre- 
pared for war at this time than were the In- 
dians. When asked whether he intended to per- 

72 



The Prophet's Power 

sist in his opposition to the cessions of territory 
in the valley of the Wabash, Tecumseh firmly 
asserted his intention to adhere to the old bound- 
ary, though he made it clear that, if the governor 
would prevail upon the President to give up the 
lands in question and would agree never to make 
another treaty without the consent of all the 
tribes, he would pledge himself to be a faithful 
ally of the United States. Otherwise he would 
be obliged to enter into an alliance with the 
English. Harrison told him that the American 
Government would never agree to his suggestions. 
"Well," rejoined Tecumseh, as though he had 
expected the answer he received, "as the Great 
Chief is to decide the matter, I hope the Great 
Spirit will put sense enough into his head to in- 
duce him to direct you to give up the land. True, 
he is so far off that he will not be injured by the 
war. It is you and I who will have to fight it 
out while he sits in his town and drinks his wine." 
It only needed this open declaration of his 
hostile intentions by Tecumseh to convince Har- 
rison that the time had come to strike, and strike 
hard. If the peril of the great Indian league of 
which Tecumseh had boasted was to be averted, 
it must be done before that confederation became 
too strongly organized to shatter. There was no 

73 



The Road to Glory 

time to be lost. Harrison promptly issued a call 
for volunteers to take part in a campaign against 
the Indians, at the same time despatching a mes- 
senger to Washington requesting the loan of a 
regiment of regulars to stiffen the raw levies who 
would compose the major part of the expedition. 
News of Harrison's call for men spread over the 
frontier States as though disseminated by wire- 
less, and soon the volunteers came pouring in: 
frontiersmen from Kentucky and Tennessee in fur 
caps and hunting-shirts of buckskin; woodsmen 
from the forests of Michigan and Wisconsin, 
long-barrelled rifles on their shoulders and pow- 
der-horns slung from their necks; militiamen 
from Indiana and Illinois, and grizzled Indian- 
fighters from the towns along the river and the 
backwoods settlements, who volunteered as much 
from love of fighting as from hatred of the 
Indians. Then, one day, almost before Harri- 
son realized that they had started, a column 
of dusty, footsore soldiery came tramping into 
Vincennes with the unmistakable swing of vet- 
erans. It was the 4th Regiment of United States 
Infantry, commanded by Colonel John Parker 
Boyd, who, upon receiving orders from Wash- 
ington to hurry to Harrison's assistance, had put 
his men on flatboats at Pittsburg, where the 

74 



The Prophet's Power 

regiment was stationed, floated them down to 
the falls of the Ohio, and marched them over- 
land to Harrison's headquarters at Vincennes, ac- 
complishing the four-hundred-mile journey in a 
time which made that veteran frontiersman open 
his eyes with astonishment when he heard it. 

Boyd * was one of the most picturesque figures 
which our country has ever produced. Born in 
Newburyport in 1764, the last British soldier had 
left our shores before he was old enough to real- 
ize the ambition of his life by obtaining a com- 
mission in the American army. But his was not 
the disposition which could content itself with 
the tedium of garrison life in time of peace; so, be- 
fore he had passed his four-and-twentieth birth- 
day he had handed in his papers and taken pas- 
sage for India. The closing years of the eight- 
eenth century saw fighting going on from one 
end of Hindustan to the other. The British were 
fighting the French, and the Hindus were fighting 
the Mohammedans, so that men with military 
training found there a profitable market for their 
services and their swords. 

After serving for a time as cavalry instructor 

* A detailed account of the amazing exploits of Colonel Boyd will 
be found in "For Rent: An Army on Elephants," in Mr. Powell's 
"Gentlemen Rovers." 

75 



The Road to Glory 

in the armies of the Peishwa, as the ruler of the 
Mahratta tribes was called, Boyd obtained a 
commission as colonel in the service of the Nizam 
of Hyderabad, distinguished himself in a series 
of whirlwind raids which he led into the terri- 
tory of the Sultan of Mysore during the cam- 
paign which ended with the death of that tyrant 
in a last desperate stand at the gates of his capi- 
tal of Seringapatam, and was rewarded by the 
Nizam giving him the command of a brigade of 
ten thousand turbaned troopers. Having by this 
time accumulated a modest fortune as a result 
of the lavish pay he had received from his princely 
employers, he resigned from the Nizam's service 
and organized an army of his own. The horses, 
elephants, and guns were his personal property, 
and he rented his army to those native princes 
who stood in need of its services and were able 
to pay for them, very much as a garage rents an 
automobile. 

Foreseeing the eventual conquest of India by 
the British and realizing that it would mean the 
end of independent soldiering in that country, he 
sold his army, elephants and all, to an Italian 
soldier of fortune and turned his face toward his 
native land once more. At that time soldiering 
was neither a very popular nor a very profitable 

76 



The Prophet's Power 

profession in the United States, so that Boyd, 
whose reputation as a daring leader and a rigid 
discipHnarian had preceded him, had no difficulty 
in again obtaining a commission under his own 
flag and in the service of his own country, being 
offered by the government and promptly accept- 
ing the colonelcy of the 4th Regiment of foot. 
An October evening in 181 1, then, saw him riding 
into Vincennes at the head of his travel-weary 
regulars, in response to Governor Harrison's re- 
quest for reinforcements. 

The news brought in by the scouts that war- 
dances were going on in the Indian villages and 
that the threatened storm was about to break 
served to hasten Harrison's preparations. The 
small, but exceedingly businesslike, expedition 
which marched out of Vincennes on the ist day 
of November under the leadership of Governor 
Harrison, with Colonel Boyd in direct command 
of the troops, consisted of the nine companies of 
regulars which Boyd had brought from Pitts- 
burg, six companies of infantry of the Indiana 
militia, two companies of Indiana dragoons, two 
companies of Kentucky mounted rifles, a com- 
pany of Indiana mounted rifles, and a company 
of scouts — about eleven hundred men in all. 
Their uniforms would have looked strange and 

77 



The Road to Glory 

outlandish indeed to one accustomed to the ser- 
viceable, dust-colored garb of the present-day sol- 
dier, for the infantry wore high felt hats of the 
** stovepipe'' pattern, adorned with red-white-and- 
blue cockades, tight-waisted, long-tailed coats of 
blue cloth with brass buttons, and pantaloons as 
nearly skin-tight as the tailor could make them. 
The dragoons were gorgeous in white buckskin 
breeches, high, varnished boots, "shell'* jackets 
which reached barely to the hips, and brass hel- 
mets with streaming plumes of horsehair. Be- 
cause the mounted riflemen who were under the 
command of Captain Spencer wore gray uniforms 
lavishly trimmed with yellow, they bore the nick- 
name among the troops of "Spencer's Yellow- 
Jackets." The only men of the force, indeed, 
who were suitably clad for Indian warfare were 
the scouts, who wore the hunting-shirts, leggings, 
and moccasins of soft-tanned buckskin, which 
were the orthodox dress of the frontier. 

Commanded by men of such wide experience in 
savage warfare as Harrison and Boyd, it is need- 
less to say that every precaution was taken against 
surprise, the column moving in a formation which 
prepared it for instant battle. The cavalry 
formed advance and rear guards, and small de- 
tachments rode on either flank; the infantry 

78 



The Prophet's Power 

marched in two columns, one on either side of 
the trail, with the baggage wagons, pack-animals, 
and beeves between them, while the scouts, 
thrown far out into the forest, formed a moving 
cordon of skirmishers. After crossing the Ver- 
milion River the troops found themselves upon 
an immense prairie, which stretched away, level 
as a floor, as far as the eye could see — as far as 
the Illinois at Chicago, the guides asserted. It 
filled the soldiers, who came from a rugged and 
heavily forested country, with the greatest as- 
tonishment, for few of them had ever seen so 
vast an expanse of level ground before. Shortly 
afterward, however, they left the prairie and 
marched through open woods, over ground gashed 
and furrowed by deep ravines. Here the great- 
est precautions had to be observed, for clouds of 
Indian scouts hung upon the flanks of the col- 
umn, and the broken nature of the country fitted 
it admirably for ambushes. 

Late in the afternoon of November 6, 1811, in 
a cold and drizzling rain, Harrison gave orders to 
bivouac for the night on a piece of high but 
swamp-surrounded ground on the banks of the 
Tippecanoe River, near its junction with the 
Wabash, and barely five miles from the Proph- 
et's Town. It was a triangular-shaped knoll, 

79 



The Road to Glory 

dotted with oaks, one side of which dropped 
down in a sharp decHvity to a Httle stream 
edged with willows and heavy underbrush, while 
the other two sides sloped down more gradually 
to a marshy prairie. The camp was arranged in 
the form of an irregular parallelogram, with the 
regulars — ^who were the only seasoned troops in the 
expedition — forming the front and rear, the flanks 
being composed of mounted riflemen supported 
by militia, while two troops of dragoons were 
held in reserve. In the centre of this armed 
enclosure were parked the pack-animals and the 
baggage-train. Though late in the night the 
moon rose from behind a bank of clouds; the 
night was very dark, with occasional flurries of 
rain. The troops lay on the rain-soaked ground 
with rifles loaded and bayonets fixed, but they 
slept but little, I fancy, for they had brought 
no tents, few of them were provided with blan- 
kets, and top-hats and tail-coats are not exactly 
adapted to camping in the forest in November. 

From his experience in previous campaigns, 
Harrison had learned that, while in the vicinity 
of any considerable body of Indians, it was the 
part of precaution to arouse his men quietly an 
hour or so before daybreak, for it was a charac- 
teristic of the Indians to deliver their attacks 

80 



The Prophet's Power 

shortly before the dawn, which is the hour when 
tired men sleep the soundest. Meanwhile, in the 
Indian camp preparations were being stealthily 
made for the surprise and extermination of the 
white invaders. Tecumseh was not present, be- 
ing absent on one of his proselyting tours among 
the southern tribes, but the prophet brought out 
the sacred torch and the magic beans, which his 
followers had only to touch, so he assured them, 
to become invulnerable to the enemy's bullets. 
This ceremony was followed by a series of incan- 
tations, war songs and dances, until the Indians, 
now wrought up to a frenzy, were ready for any 
deed of madness. Slipping like horrid phantoms 
through the waist-high prairie grass in the black- 
ness of the night, they crept nearer and nearer 
to the sleeping camp, intending to surround the 
position, stab the sentries, rush the camp, and 
slaughter every man in it whom they could not 
take alive for the torture stake. 

In pursuance of his custom of early rising, 
Harrison was just pulling on his boots before the 
embers of a dying camp-fire, at four o'clock in the 
morning, preparatory to rousing his men, when 
the silence of the forest was suddenly broken by 
the crack of a sentry's rifle. The echoes had not 
time to die away before, from three sides of the 

8i 



The Road to Glory 

camp, rose the shrill, hair-raising war-whoop of 
the Indians. As familiar with the lay of the land 
as a housewife is with the arrangements of her 
kitchen, they had effected their plan of surround- 
ing the camp, confident of taking the suddenly 
awakened soldiers so completely by surprise that 
they would be unable to offer an effectual re- 
sistance. Not a warrior of them but did not 
look forward to returning to the Prophet's 
Town with a string of dripping scalp-locks at 
his waist. 

The Indians, quite unlike their usual custom 
of keeping to cover, fought as white men fight, 
for, made reckless by the prophet's assurances 
that his spells had made them invulnerable and 
that bullets could not harm them, they advanced 
at a run across the open. At sight of the on- 
coming wave of bedaubed and befeathered fig- 
ures the raw levies from Indiana and Kentucky 
visibly wavered and threatened to give way, but 
Boyd's regulars, though taken by surprise, showed 
the result of their training by standing like a 
stone wall against the onset of the whooping red- 
skins. The engagement quickly became general. 
The chorus of cheers and yells and groans and 
war-whoops was punctuated by the continuous 
crackle of the frontiersmen's rifles and the crash- 

82 



The Prophet's Power 

ing volleys of the infantry. Harrison, a conspicu- 
ous figure on a white horse and wearing a white 
blanket coat, rode up and down the lines, en- 
couraging here, cautioning there, as cool and as 
quiet-voiced as though back on the parade-ground 
at Vincennes. 

The pressure was greatest at the angle of the 
camp where the first attack was made, the troops 
stationed at this point having the greatest diffi- 
culty in holding their position. Seeing this, 
Major Joseph H. Daviess, a brilliant but hot- 
headed young Kentuckian who had achieved 
fame by his relentless attacks on Aaron Burr, 
twice asked permission to charge with his dra- 
goons, and twice the governor sent back the an- 
swer: "Tell Major Daviess to be patient; he 
shall have his chance before the battle is over." 
When Daviess for a third time urged his impor- 
tunate request, Harrison answered the messenger 
sharply: "Tell Major Daviess he has twice heard 
my opinion; he may now use his own discretion." 
Discretion, however, was evidently not included 
in the Kentuckian's make-up, for no sooner had 
he received Harrison's message than, with barely 
a score of dismounted troopers, he charged the 
Indian line. So foolhardy a performance could 
only be expected to end in disaster. Daviess fell, 

83 



The Road to Glory 

mortally wounded, and his men, such of them as 
were not dead, turned and fled for their lives. 

The prophet, who had been chanting appeals 
to the Great Spirit from the top of a rock within 
view of his warriors but safely out of range of 
the American rifles (he evidently had some 
doubts as to the efficacy of his charms), realized 
that, as a result of the unforeseen obstinacy 
of the Americans' resistance, victory was fast 
sHpping from his grasp and that his only hope 
of success lay in an overwhelming charge. 
Roused to renewed fanaticism by his fervid ex- 
hortations, the Indians once again swept for- 
ward, whooping like madmen. But the Ameri- 
cans were ready for them, and as the yelling 
redskins came within range they met them with 
a volley of buckshot which left them wavering, 
undecided whether to come on or to retreat. Har- 
rison, whose plan was to maintain his lines un- 
broken until daylight and then make a general 
advance, and who had been constantly riding 
from point to point within the camp to keep the 
assailed positions reinforced, realized that the 
crucial moment had arrived. Now was his chance 
to drive home the deciding blow. Boyd, recog- 
nizing as quickly as Harrison the opportunity 
thus presented, ordered a bugler to sound the 

84 




The Indians, panic-stricken at the sight of the oncoming 
troopers, broke and ran. 



The Prophet's Power 

charge, and his infantry roared down upon the 
Indian line in a human avalanche tipped with 
steel. At the same moment he ordered up the 
two squadrons of dragoons which he had been 
holding in reserve. "Right into line !" he roared, 
in the voice which had resounded over so many 
fields in far-ofF Hindustan. "Trot ! Gallop ! 
Charge! Hip, hip, here we go!" It was this 
charge, delivered with the smashing suddenness 
with which a boxer gets in a solar-plexus blow, 
which did the business. The Indians, panic- 
stricken at the sight of the oncoming troopers in 
their brass helmets and streaming plumes of 
horsehair, broke and ran. Tippecanoe was won, 
though at a cost to the Americans of nearly two 
hundred killed and wounded, including two lieu- 
tenant-colonels, two majors, five captains, and 
several Heutenants. The discredited prophet, 
now become an object of hatred and derision 
among his own people, fled for his Hfe while the 
victorious Americans burned his town behind him. 
Tecumseh, returning from the south to be greeted 
by the news of the disaster to his plans resulting 
from his brother's folly, threw in his lot with the 
British, commanded England's Indian allies in 
the War of 1812, and died two years later at the 
battle of the Thames, when his old adversary, 

85 



The Road to Glory 

Harrison, once again led the Americans to vic- 
tory. For his share in the Tippecanoe triumph, 
Boyd received a brigadier-general's commission. 
Harrison was started on the road which was to 
end at the White House. The peril of the great 
Indian confederation was ended forever, and the 
civiHzation of the West was advanced a quarter 
of a century. 



86 



THE WAR THAT WASN'T A WAR 



THE WAR THAT WASN'T A WAR 

I WONDER how many of the white-clad, 
white-shod folk who lounge their winters 
away on the golf-links at St. Augustine or in 
wheeled chairs propelled by Ethiopians along the 
fragrant pathways of Palm Beach ever specu- 
late as to how it happens that the flags which 
fly over the Ponce de Leon and the Royal Poin- 
ciana are made of red, white, and blue bunting 
instead, say, of red and yellow. Not many of 
them, I expect, for professional joy hunters have 
no time to spare for history. I wonder how 
many of those people who complacently regard 
themselves as well-read and well-informed could 
tell you ofFhand, if you asked them, how Florida 
became American or give you even the barest 
outline of the conception and execution of that 
daring and cynical scheme whereby it was added to 
the Union. I wonder how many professors of his- 
tory in our schools and colleges are aware that 
Florida was once a republic — for but a brief time, 
it is true — with a flag and a president and an 
army of its own. I wonder how many of our 
military and naval officers know that we fought 

89 



The Road to Glory 

Spanish soldiers and stormed Spanish forts and 
captured Spanish towns and hauled down Span- 
ish colors (all quite unofficially, of course) four- 
score years before Schley and Sampson sunk the 
Spanish fleet oflT Santiago. And, finally, I wonder 
how many people have ever so much as heard of 
the Emperor McGillivray, who held his barbaric 
court at Tallahassee and was a general in the 
armies of England, Spain, and the United States 
at the same time; of Sir Gregor MacGregor, the 
Scottish soldier of fortune who attempted to es- 
tablish a kingdom at Fernandina and died King 
of the Mosquito Coast; or any of those other 
strange and romantic figures — De Aury, Hubbard, 
Peire, Humbert — who followed him. It is a dash- 
ing story but a bloody one, and those who have 
no stomach for intrigue and treachery and massa- 
cre and ambushes and storming parties and fili- 
bustering expeditions had better turn elsewhere 
for their reading. 

Some one has aptly remarked that the history 
of Florida is but a bowl of blood, and that, were 
a man to cast into it some chemical that would 
separate the solid ingredients from the mere water, 
he would find that the precipitate at the bottom 
consisted of little save death and disappointment. 
Certainly the Spaniards were rewarded by little 

90 



The War That Wasn't a War 

more, for after they had ruled it for two hundred 
and fifty years the net results of their labor were 
the beggarly settlements at Pensacola and St. 
Augustine. In 1763 England ceded Havana to 
Spain in exchange for Florida, and for a brief 
time that harassed country was on speaking terms 
with peace and prosperity, for the English estab- 
lished settlements and built roads and started 
schools, as is the quaint Anglo-Saxon way. But 
with the loss of her American colonies, in 1783, 
England suddenly concluded that it was not 
worth her while to retain this now isolated prov- 
ince; so she ceded it back to Spain, and the set- 
tlers found that their work had gone for noth- 
ing. A Spanish lethargy promptly settled upon 
the land; grass sprang up in the main streets of 
the towns; the noon-hour was expanded into a 
siesta which lasted from twelve to four; the in- 
digo plantations started by. the English colonists 
were neglected and ran out; the injustice, cruelty, 
and oppression which everywhere characterized 
Spanish rule entered upon a return engagement; 
and Florida became a savage and lawless border- 
land, where Indians, runaway slaves, filibusters, 
frontiersmen, and fugitives from justice fought 
each other and united only in jeering at the 
feeble rule of Spain. 

91 



The Road to Glory 

At this time the colony was divided into two 
provinces, known as East and West Florida. 
The former province was virtually identical with 
the present State, extending from the Perdido 
River (now the boundary-line between the States 
of Florida and Alabama) eastward to the Atlantic 
Ocean, including the great peninsula lying south 
of Georgia and stretching across almost six de- 
grees of latitude. On its Atlantic seaboard were 
the towns of Fernandina and St. Augustine, and 
on the Gulf coast the ports of Pensacola and 
St. Marks. The province of West Florida ex- 
tended from the Perdido westward, according to 
the Spanish claims, to the Mississippi and in- 
cluded the river town of Baton Rouge and the 
Gulf port of Mobile. It will be seen, therefore, 
that Spain was in possession of all that great 
semicircle of Gulf coast stretching from Key West 
to New Orleans. 

In 1803, Napoleon, hard-pressed for funds with 
which to continue his European campaigns, sold 
the colony of Louisiana to the United States as 
unconcernedly as though he were disposing of a 
suburban building lot. This proceeding was typ- 
ical of the utter indifference with which the sov- 
ereigns of the Old World were accustomed to 
transfer their colonies in the New. The colo- 

92 



The War That Wasn't a War 

nists, however much they may have loved their 
sovereign, their country, or her institutions, were 
bought, sold, or given away, without their con- 
sent and often without their knowledge. This 
enormous addition to the national domain made it 
not only desirable but imperative that the United 
States acquire ports upon the Gulf of Mexico, so 
that the settlers in Tennessee, Mississippi, Ala- 
bama, and western Georgia might have an outlet 
for their products. The gentlemen in frock coats 
and high black stocks who were at the tiller of 
our ship of state determined, therefore, that the 
Floridas must become American — peacefully if 
possible, forcibly if there was no other way. 

Now, it must be borne in mind that at this 
time Spain had no diplomatic intercourse with 
the United States, the gigantic policy of Napoleon 
having, for the time being, erased her from the 
list of nations. Thus overwhelmed at home, her 
possessions in America were either in a state of 
open revolt or in so defenseless a condition that 
they were ready to drop like ripe plums into the 
hands of any nation which shook the tree. It 
will thus be seen that the gentlemen in Washing- 
ton quite evidently knew what the}^ were about 
when they chose a time when Mother Spain was 
confined to her bed, as the result of the beating 

93 



The Road to Glory 

up she had received from Napoleon, to elope with 
her daughter Florida. 

Once set in motion, the machinery of conquest 
proceeded to pare off slices of Florida with the 
neatness and despatch of a meat-cutting machine. 
The plans of the American Government worked 
out as smoothly as a church wedding which has 
been rehearsed beforehand. The carefully laid 
scheme first manifested itself in October, 1810, 
when a revolution broke out in that portion of 
West Florida bordering upon the Mississippi. In 
that region there was a family of American set- 
tlers named Kemper who had suffered many in- 
justices under Spanish rule. Two of these men, 
Samuel and Reuben (the same Reuben Kemper, 
by the way, whose exploits in Mexico are de- 
scribed in "Adventurers All "), determined to get 
rid of their hated rulers, incited the neighboring 
settlers to rise in armed revolt. Assembling at St. 
Francisville, they marched through the night, ar- 
rived before Baton Rouge at dawn, took it by 
surprise, and after a skirmish in which the Span- 
ish governor was killed drove out the garrison 
and occupied the town. In order to throw a 
cloak of legality over their acts, the revolution- 
ists organized a convention, issued a declaration 
of independence modelled on Jefferson's immor- 

94 



The War That Wasn't a War 

tal document, elected Fulwar Skipwith, formerly 
American diplomatic agent in France, president 
of the new republic, and hoisted over the cap- 
tured town a flag with a single star — the same 
emblem under which the Texans were to win 
their independence thirty odd years later. This 
done, the infant repubhc asked the United States 
to recognize it as an independent nation. But 
President Monroe, instead of extending recogni- 
tion, asserting that the revolted province had 
been ceded by Spain to France along with Louisi- 
ana in 1800, and therefore, being part and parcel 
of Louisiana, belonged to the United States any- 
way, declared the Territory of West Florida, as 
far east as the Pearl River, an American possession. 
Shortly after the capture of Baton Rouge 
Colonel Kemper, acting under orders from the 
revolutionary government, led another expedition 
against Mobile. Made overconfident by their easy 
triumph at Baton Rouge, the filibusters encamped 
a few miles above Mobile and spent the night in a 
grand carousal in celebration of their anticipated 
victory on the morrow. But the Spanish gov- 
ernor, learning from a spy of the Americans' be- 
fuddled condition, salHed out at the head of three 
hundred men, took the revolutionists by surprise, 
and completely routed them. A major and nine 

95 



The Road to Glory 

men who were taken prisoners were transported 
to Havana, where they paid for their affront to 
the majesty of Spain by spending five years in 
Morro Castle. A few weeks later a strong force 
of American regulars arrived ofF Mobile and 
coolly sat down within sight of the Spanish for- 
tifications. They explained their presence to the 
Spanish governor by saying that they had been 
sent by the American Government to protect 
him and his men from further attacks by the 
insurgents. The gentlemen who were shaping 
the policies of the nation in Washington certainly 
must have had a sense of humor. Though the 
Spanish flag still flew over Mobile, the United 
States was now, to all intents and purposes, in 
complete possession of West Florida. In the 
spring of 1812, when the American Government 
finally determined on a war with England, the 
strategic importance of Mobile became apparent 
and President Monroe, deciding that the time 
had come to end the farce, despatched an expe- 
dition under General Wilkinson to oust the Span- 
ish garrison and formally occupy the city. The 
United States was now in full possession of one of 
the Gulf ports she had so long been coveting, and 
the machinery of conquest was still in working 
order. 

96 



The War That Wasn't a War 

Meanwhile the American Government, having 
heard rumors that the British were about to as- 
sume control of East Florida under the provisions 
of a secret arrangement with Spain, asked permis- 
sion of the Spanish authorities to occupy that prov- 
ince with troops that it might not be used by the 
British as a base of operations. (The occupation 
was to be purely temporary; oh, yes indeed, the 
American troops would be withdrawn as soon as 
the war-clouds which were piling up along the 
political horizon lifted a little.) It is scarcely to 
be wondered at, however, that Spain curtly re- 
fused the request, whereupon Congress, in secret 
session, passed an act authorizing the seizure of 
East Florida. But it would have smacked too 
much of highway robbery or of burglary, which- 
ever you choose to call it, for the United States 
to have sent a military expedition into the prov- 
ince and taken it by force of arms. That would 
have been just a little too coarse and crude and 
might, moreover, have called forth a European 
protest. But surely no blame could be attached 
to the United States because the settlers in south- 
ern Georgia, exasperated, they said, by the law- 
less conditions which prevailed in the adjacent 
Spanish province, suddenly determined to follow 
the example of their neighbors in West Florida 

97 



The Road to Glory 

and organize a republican form of government 
in East Florida as a preliminary to applying 
for admission to the Union. It was a strange co- 
incidence, was it not, that the instigator of the 
revolution. General George Mathews, a former 
governor of Georgia, had been appointed a com- 
missioner, under the secret act of Congress, to se- 
cure the province ? Amelia Island, lying just off 
the Florida coast and a little below the bound- 
ary of Georgia, provided an admirable base of 
operations. The fine harbor of its capital, Fer- 
nandina, was just becoming of considerable com- 
mercial importance and in Spanish hands might 
prove a serious menace to the United States in 
the approaching war with England. Hence the 
acquisition of this island and harbor was regarded 
by the American authorities as a military neces- 
sity. Early in 1812, therefore, a force of some 
two hundred Georgian frontiersmen under Gen- 
eral Mathews moved down upon Fernandina and 
sent a flag of truce, demanding the surrender of 
the town and island. As a flotilla of American 
gunboats, by a streak of the greatest good luck, 
happened into the harbor at this psychological 
moment, and a force of American regulars, by 
another singular coincidence, appeared upon the 
scene and placed themselves under Mathews's 

98 



The War That Wasn't a War 

orders, there was nothing left for the Spanish 
commandant but to haul down his flag. Where- 
upon General Mathews, assuming the attitude of 
a protector, took possession of the place in the 
name of the United States. With the precedent 
of Baton Rouge to guide him, Mathews natu- 
rally supposed that the secret and ambiguously- 
worded instructions under which he had gone to 
Fernandina meant that he was to take possession 
of East Florida, and he was strengthened in this 
supposition by the condition of affairs that he 
found there. St. Mary's River was filled with 
British vessels engaged in smuggling British mer- 
chandise into the United States in defiance of the 
Embargo Act, while AmeHa Island was a notori- 
ous rendezvous for smugglers, upon whom the 
Spanish authorities looked with marked toler- 
ance, if, indeed, they did not lend them actual 
assistance. As soon as the Americans took 
possession a custom-house was established, the 
smuggling promptly ceased, and over the fort 
was raised a flag bearing the inscription: ^' Fox 
populi lex salutis,'" Though the uneducated 
frontiersmen were a trifle hazy as to the motto's 
meaning, it sounded well and lent a certain air 
of dignity to the proceedings. The next move of 
the insurgents, now become eight hundred strong 

99 



The Road to Glory 

by reinforcements from Georgia, was to besiege the 
Spanish governor in St. Augustine, for Mathews, 
confident that Congress would pass a bill sanc- 
tioning his seizure of the province, ran things 
with a high hand. As a matter of fact, such a 
bill was passed by the House in secret session, 
but was rejected by the Senate, whereupon Pres- 
ident Madison disavowed the act of Mathews and 
ordered him to evacuate the territory he had seized 
— probably because it was deemed unwise to pro- 
voke hostilities with another power at the very 
moment we had declared war on England. But 
the conquest of Florida was not abandoned — 
merely postponed. 

A century ago the region south of the Ten- 
nessee River was popularly known as "the Creek 
country." Because it lay directly athwart the 
best water communications between the settle- 
ments in Tennessee and the outside world, and 
because its lands were among the most fertile in 
the South, the eyes of the American pioneers were 
turned covetously upon it. Now, no one realized 
better than the Creeks themselves that if they 
were to hold their lands they must fight for them. 
Their decision to resist American encroachments 
was strengthened by the appearance among them 
of the great northern chieftain, Tecumseh. In 

lOO 



The War That Wasn't a War 

October, 1811, this remarkable man, in pursuance 
of his scheme for uniting the red men from the 
Great Lakes to the Gulf in an Indian confeder- 
acy for the purpose of resisting the white man's 
further progress westward, suddenly appeared at 
a Creek council held on the upper Tallapoosa. 
Perhaps the most brilliant orator the Indian race 
has ever produced and gifted with extraordinary 
personal magnetism, he held his audience spell- 
bound as, standing in the circle of light thrown 
by the council-fire, ringed about by row on row 
of blanketed and feathered warriors, he outHned 
his scheme for a union of all the Indians of the 
West in a confederation powerful enough to bid 
defiance to the white man. Standing like a bronze 
statue, the firelight playing on his haughty fea- 
tures, his copper skin, and the single eagle feather 
slanting in his hair, he held aloft his war-club; 
then, finger by finger, he slowly relaxed his grasp 
until it crashed to the ground. By that signifi- 
cant pantomime, so powerful in its appeal to the 
primitive intellects of his hearers, he drove home 
with telling effect the weakness which comes from 
disunion. Though a few weeks later, on the banks 
of the Tippecanoe River, William Henry Harri- 
son broke Tecumseh's power forever and drove 
him from American soil, he had aroused in the 

lOI 



The Road to Glory 

Creeks a determination to retain their lands or 
to go down upon them fighting. 

Meanwhile British agents had been secretly at 
work among the discontented Creeks, whooping 
them on to a campaign of extermination against 
the American settlers and supplying them with 
arms and ammunition in return for the promise 
of their assistance in the war which every one 
realized was now at hand. On the i8th of June, 
1812, Congress declared war on England, and a 
week later every Creek fighting man was daub- 
ing the war-paint on his copper skin. Though 
the danger of a war with the Creeks was perfectly 
understood in Washington, the military authori- 
ties were too busy pushing forward their prepara- 
tions for an invasion of Canada to spare much 
thought for the settlers dwelling along our un- 
protected southern frontier. But the Indians, 
under the leadership of the half-breed war-chief 
Weatherford, had nothing to divert their atten- 
tion from the business in hand. 

A pioneer farmer named Samuel Mimms had 
built a stockade for the protection of his cattle 
on Lake Tensaw, twenty miles or so north of 
Mobile, and here the settlers of the surrounding 
region had taken refuge. Governor Claiborne, of 
Louisiana, hurrying a small force of militia under 

102 



The War That Wasn't a War 

Major Beasley to protect them. In August, 1813, 
the place, popularly known as Fort Mimms, shel- 
tered within its log stockade five hundred and 
fifty-three persons: soldiers and settlers, men, 
women, and children. Although Governor Clai- 
borne had himself visited the post during the pre- 
ceding month and had urged on its commander 
the necessity for the most unrelaxing vigilance, 
Beasley and his men evidently came to look upon 
the affair as a false alarm as the summer days 
slipped by without bringing any signs of hostile 
Indians. So cocksure did they become, indeed, 
that even after a friendly Indian had brought 
word that the Creeks were preparing to attack 
the place they continued to leave the gates of 
the stockade unguarded during the day. They 
paid a fearful price for their negligence, however. 
At noon on the 30th of August, when the occu- 
pants of the fort were at their dinner, a thousand 
fiends in paint and feathers slipped like shadows 
from the gloom of the encircling forest, sped on 
noiseless, moccasined feet across the strip of cul- 
tivated ground without the walls, and, before the 
demoralized garrison realized what had happened, 
were pouring through the unguarded entrance in 
a howling, shrieking wave like demons pouring 
through the gates of hell. Though taken com- 

1^3 



The Road to Glory 

pletely by surprise and outnumbered five to one, 
the garrison put up a most desperate and gal- 
lant resistance. The scene was dreadful beyond 
imagination. It was hand-to-hand fighting in 
its bloodiest form: bayonets against war-clubs, 
muskets against tomahawks, pistols against knives. 
Increasing the horror of the situation a hundred- 
fold were the women and children, for there was 
no question as to their fate if the Indians were 
victorious. Beasley fell at the first attack and 
every officer died at the gateway in a vain at- 
tempt to stem the Indian rush. A young Heu- 
tenant, badly wounded, was carried by two 
women to a blockhouse, but when he was a 
little revived insisted on being taken back that 
he might die with his comrades on the fighting 
line. Though hopeless from the first, the defense 
was prolonged for hours; for after the men of the 
garrison had fallen, the women and children shut 
themselves up in one of the blockhouses, where 
they held off the yelling savages with the cour- 
age of despair. Finally, however, the Indians, 
by means of burning arrows, succeeded in set- 
ting the building on fire, and after that it was 
no longer a battle but a butchery. Of the five 
hundred and fifty-three people within the fort, 
only twelve escaped. It was a dearly bought vic- 

104 



The War That Wasn't a War 

tory for the Indians, however, for piled around 
the gateway were four hundred of their best 
fighting men. 

From one end of the border to the other rose 
the cry for vengeance. Nor was it long in com- 
ing. The legislature of Tennessee voted to raise 
men and money to wipe out the Creeks, and called 
for volunteers. Jumping at this chance to even 
up old scores with the Indians, the frontiersmen, 
their long squirrel rifles on their shoulders and 
clad in their serviceable buckskin dress, came 
pouring in to offer their services in the campaign 
of retribution. The command of the expedition 
was given to a brigadier-general of Tennessee 
mihtia who up to that time had scarcely been 
heard of outside the borders of his own State. 
He was a tall, emaciated figure of a man, with a 
clean-shaven, sallow face, a jaw like a bear-trap, 
a great beak of a nose, eyes as penetrating as 
gimlets and as cold as a winter's morning, and a 
shock of unkempt sandy hair just beginning to 
gray under his forty-seven years. He was not 
at all the sort of man that a stranger would slap 
on the back and address by his first name — at 
least he would not do it a second time. His 
garments were as severe and businesslike as the 
man himself: a much-worn leather cap, a short. 



The Road to Glory 

Spanish cloak of frayed blue cloth, and great un- 
polished boots whose tops swayed uneasily about 
his bony knees. He carried his arm in a sling 
as the result of a pistol wound received during 
a brawl in a Nashville tavern. Everything con- 
sidered, this man who had been chosen to strike 
terror to the Creeks was a strange and striking 
figure. You may have heard of him — his name 
was Andrew Jackson. 

This was the extraordinary man who, early in 
the autumn of 1813, took the field at the head 
of three thousand volunteers as rough and ready 
as himself. A vast amount of nonsense has been 
written about pioneer troops. Though some of 
the most briUiant and daring campaigns in which 
Americans have borne a part were carried through 
by soldiers recruited on the frontier and though 
the marching and fighting qualities of these men 
have been surpassed by no troops on earth, they 
were, on the other hand, nearly always insubor- 
dinate, contemptuous of discipline, impudent to 
their officers, quickly homesick, and very depen- 
dent for success on enthusiasm for their leaders. 
Jackson was the best man that could possibly 
have been chosen to command such troops as 
these, for he had been born and brought up on 
the frontier, he understood the men with whom 

106 



The War That Wasn't a War 

he was dealing, and managed them with energy, 
firmness, and tact. He rarely had any difficulty 
in fining his ranks, for he permitted no obstacles 
to deter him from reaching and crushing an 
enemy; hence the men who followed him in his 
campaigns always had stories to relate and were 
looked upon as heroes in the settlements. To be 
pointed out as "one of Andy Jackson's men" 
came to be looked upon as as great an honor as 
the scarlet ribbon of the Legion of Honor is in 
France. 

Jackson's plan of campaign provided for the 
construction of a military road, fifty miles in 
length, from the Tennessee to the Coosa, whence, 
after building a fortified base of supplies, he 
planned to make a quick dash southward, spread- 
ing death and destruction as he went, until he 
dictated peace on the Hickory Ground. The 
Hickory Ground, which lay at the junction of 
the Alabama and the Coosa, near the present 
site of Montgomery, was the headquarters of 
the Creek confederacy and a place of refuge, the 
Indian medicine-men having asserted that no 
white could set foot upon its sacred soil and live. 
Jackson, as I have already remarked, permitted 
no obstacles to deter him. So, when his engineers 
reported that it was not feasible to build a road 

107 



The Road to Glory 

through the unmapped wilderness, he took the 
matter out of their hands and built the road him- 
self. And when the contractors assured him that 
it was out of the question to transport supplies 
for three thousand men to the Coosa within the 
time he had specified, he commandeered horses 
and wagons and did that, too. When one of his 
regiments attempted to settle a dispute over the 
term of enlistment by turning about and march- 
ing home, Jackson, his left arm still disabled and 
in a sHng, snatched a musket from a soldier with 
his right hand and, using the neck of his horse 
for a rest, covered with his weapon the column of 
sullen, scowHng mutineers. With eyes flashing 
and frame quivering with passion, he single-handed 
held the disaffected regiment at bay, shouting 
shrilly, with a volley of oaths, that he would let 
dayUght into the first man who stirred. Colonels 
Reid and Coffee, learning of the mutiny, came 
galloping up from the rear and took their stand 
by the side of their commander, while some loyal 
companies formed up across the road with weapons 
levelled, seeing which the mutineers changed their 
minds as to the wisdom of going home and sul- 
lenly marched on. 

He first met the Creeks on the 3d of Novem- 
ber at Talluschatches — now Jacksonville, Ala. — 

108 



The War That Wasn't a War 

and promptly attacked them with a thousand 
mounted men. No quarter was asked and none 
was given, and when the battle was over not 
an Indian brave was left aHve. Six days later, 
at Talladega, he swooped down upon a war party 
of a thousand Creeks who had surrounded a band 
of friendly Indians and sent a third of them to 
the happy hunting-grounds. At the same time 
General John Floyd invaded the Creek country 
from Georgia at the head of a punitive expedi- 
tion, while from the west also came an avenging 
column under Governor Claiborne, of Louisiana. 
The latter discovered a town of refuge, called 
Econochaca, on the Alabama. It was built on 
holy ground, the Indian prophets said, and, as 
a result of the spells they had cast over it, it was 
safe from paleface invasion. The Americans ar- 
rived not an instant too soon, for, guided by the 
throbbing of the war-drums, they burst into the 
village to find the Indians, their ringed and 
streaked bodies more fiendish still in the glare 
of a great fire, whooping and capering about a 
row of stakes to which were bound white cap- 
tives of both sexes, ready to be burned. When 
Claiborne's men finished their work, the "holy 
ground" was carpeted with Indian dead, and the 
medicine-men who had boasted that it was im- 

109 



The Road to Glory 

mune from invasion were themselves scalped and 
staring corpses. 

Nothing more graphically illustrates the sav- 
agery and determination with which the American 
frontiersmen prosecuted their campaign against 
the Indians than the story of Sam Dale's canoe 
fight. Dale, who was a veritable Hercules of a 
man, while scouting with some companions in 
advance of Jackson's army, saw floating down the 
Alabama a war canoe containing eleven Creeks. 
Ambushing themselves amid the bushes on the 
bank, the Americans poured in a volley as the 
canoe swept by and five of the Indians fell dead. 
Then Dale pushed off in a small boat with three 
men to finish up the business. Ordering one of 
his companions to hold the boats together, the 
big frontiersman went at the Indians with his 
bayonet like a field-hand with his pitchfork load- 
ing hay. Throwing caution to the winds in his 
lust of battle, he advanced upon the Indians 
single-handed, and before he had time to realize 
his peril and retreat the current had swept the 
canoes apart, leaving him in the larger one con- 
fronting the six remaining Creeks. Two of them 
were shot by his companions in the other boat, 
three more he accounted for himself, the only one 
left aUve being a famous Indian wrestler named 
Tar-cha-cha. 

no 



The War That Wasn't a War 

"Big Sam !" the Indian shouted, "I am a man ! 
. . . I am coming ! . . . Come on!" Clubbing 
his rifle, he rushed forward, deaHng Dale a blow 
which broke his shoulder and nearly sent him 
into the river, but before he could get in another 
the frontiersman drove his bayonet home and 
ended the fight. 

The early months of 1814 were a time of the 
most intense anxiety to Jackson, for, the terms of 
enlistment of his volunteers expiring, they in- 
sisted on returning to their homes, until at one 
brief period he found himself in the heart of the 
Indian country with less than a hundred men. 
Physical suffering as well as anxiety marked this 
period of the campaign — privation, exhaustion, 
irritation, and the drain of a slowly healing wound 
producing serious effects on a system which was 
habitually on the verge of collapse. It was, in- 
deed, only his cast-iron will that sustained him, 
for during one period of anxiety he slept but 
three hours in four nights. But with the coming 
of spring the feet of the young men became rest- 
less for the forest trails again, and by the middle 
of March, his ranks filled once more, he was 
ready to deliver his final blow. The Creeks had 
by this time abandoned their campaign of ag- 
gression and, falling back to their stronghold of 

III 



The Road to Glory 

Tohopeka, on the Tallapoosa, known to the whites 
as the Horseshoe Bend, they prepared to make 
their last stand. 

On the morning of March 27, 18 14, Jackson's 
skirmishers came within sight of the Indian en- 
campment. On a peninsula formed by a horse- 
shoe-like bend of the river, a thousand warriors 
with three hundred of their women and children 
were encamped. They comprised the very flower 
of the Creek nation, or rather, all that was left 
of it. The neck of the peninsula was only four 
hundred yards wide, and across it the Creeks, 
profiting by the lessons they had received from 
their Spanish and British alHes, had built a zig- 
zag wall of logs, eight feet high and pierced by a 
double row of loopholes. The angles formed by 
the zigzags enabled the defenders to sweep with 
a deadly cross-fire the ground over which an at- 
tacking column must advance, while trees had 
been felled at intervals in such fashion that their 
interlaced branches provided admirable cover for 
sharpshooters. All in all, it was a tough nut that 
Jackson found himself called upon to crack. But 
cracking that particular kind of nuts was a spe- 
cialty of Jackson's. His artillery consisted of two 
small brass field-pieces, not much larger than those 
employed on yachts for saluting purposes. Send- 

112 



The War That Wasn't a War 

ing Colonel Coffee across the river with his cavalry 
to cut off the escape of the Indians in that direc- 
tion, Jackson planted his miniature field-guns on a 
little hill only eighty yards from the Creek forti- 
fications. Either the guns must have been very 
weak or the fortifications very strong, for after a 
two-hours' bombardment no appreciable damage 
had been done. Then Jackson, who was always 
for getting to hand-grips with an enemy, told his 
men to go in and do the job with the bayonet. 
Whereupon the Tennesseeans, who had been as 
fidgety and impatient as hounds in leash, swept 
forward with a whoop. As regardless of the wither- 
ing fire poured into them as if it had been hail- 
stones instead of bullets, they hacked their way 
through the abatis of branches and clambered over 
the wall, shooting, bayonetting, clubbing with a fe- 
rocity which matched that of the Indians. And, 
imitating the customs of the savages they had 
been fighting for so long, many of the frontiers- 
men paused to scalp the Indians that they killed. 
For the Creeks it was a hopeless struggle from 
the first, but they were not of a breed that, find- 
ing themselves beaten, whined for mercy. Re- 
treating to such protection as the place afforded, 
they fought and kept on fighting even after a flag 
of truce had been sent them with an oflFer to ac- 

"3 



The Road to Glory 

cept their surrender. By three o'clock the battle 
of the Horseshoe Bend had become a part of the 
history of the frontier. So completely had Jack- 
son done his work that only twenty Indians es- 
caped. Eight hundred copper-colored corpses lay 
upon the blood-soaked ground beside the Talla- 
poosa; the rest were prisoners. It is a signifi- 
cant fact that there were no wounded among the 
Indians. The Americans had nearly two hun- 
dred killed and wounded, among the latter be- 
ing Jackson himself and a youngster named Sam 
Houston, who, in after years, was to win fame 
fighting a no less savage foe on the banks of the 
Rio Grande. 

The battle of the Horseshoe Bend broke the 
Creek power of resistance for good and all. Since 
the commencement of hostilities they had lost in 
battle nearly three-fourths of all their fighting 
men. The rest, not much more than a thou- 
sand in all, fled to their cousins, the Seminoles, 
in Florida, where they promptly began hatching 
plans for vengeance. On the ist of August, 
Jackson sent word to such of the chieftains as 
had not fled into Spanish territory to meet him 
on the Hickory Ground. Here he received their 
submission and here he imposed on them his 
terms of peace. His demands were so rigorous 

114 



The War That Wasn't a War 

as to bring a gasp of astonishment even from the 
Americans, for he insisted on the cession of an 
L-shaped tract of land which included more than 
half the territory of the Creeks, thus forming a 
barrier between them and the Choctaws and 
Chickasaws on the west and the Spaniards in 
Florida. 

Jackson now turned his face toward Nashville. 
He had ridden out of there an unpopular and 
almost unknown officer of militia. He returned 
to find himself a military hero, the stories of 
whose exploits were retailed in every settler's 
cabin from one end of the frontier to the other. 
In recognition of his services, the President com- 
missioned him a major-general in the regular 
army and gave him command of the Department 
of the South, with headquarters at Mobile. Our 
second war with England had now been dragging 
its tedious course along for nearly two years, 
marked by British successes on land and Ameri- 
can victories on the sea. The air was filled with 
rumors of a great British armada which was on 
its way to attack New Orleans, and these solidi- 
fied into fact when word reached Jackson that a 
portion of the British fleet had anchored in the 
harbor of Pensacola and proposed, in defiance of 
Spanish neutrality, to use that port as a base of 

IIS 



The Road to Glory 

operations against the United States. Pensacola 
was in Florida, and Florida was still owned by 
Spain, and Spain was professedly a neutral; but 
if the British could violate that neutrality, ar- 
gued Jackson, why, so could the Americans. With- 
out waiting for authority from Washington (and 
it was well that he did not, for the city had 
been burned by the British and the government 
had fled), Jackson crossed the Mobile River and 
invaded Spanish territory at the head of three 
thousand veterans. On November 6 he was at 
the walls of Pensacola. A messenger was sent 
to the Spanish governor under a flag of truce 
with a peremptory demand from Jackson that 
the fortress be turned over to the United States 
until such time as the Spanish were strong enough 
to maintain the neutrality of the port. The gov- 
ernor, emboldened by the fact that seven British 
war-ships were lying in the harbor, showed his de- 
fiance by firing upon the flag of truce. But he 
didn't know the type of man that he was defy- 
ing. Jackson was no more awed by the might of 
England or the majesty of Spain or the sacred- 
ness of neutral territory than he had been by the 
Indians' "holy ground." Instantly he ordered 
forward his storming parties. So sudden was his 
attack that the British ships had no time to 

ii6 



The War That Wasn't a War 

up anchor and bring their guns to bear for the 
protection of the town. The Spanish soldiery 
fought well, however, and a sharp battle ensued 
in the streets, the batteries opening on the ad- 
vancing Americans with solid shot and grape 
while a heavy fire of musketry was poured into 
them from houses and gardens. But the Span- 
iards were driven back everywhere by the fierce- 
ness of the American assault, whereupon the gov- 
ernor, seeing that further resistance was useless, 
sent a messenger to the American commander to 
inquire what terms he would grant him. "Noth- 
ing but unconditional surrender," answered Jack- 
son, and the haughty Spaniard had no alternative 
but to accept his terms. Slowly the flag of 
Spain, which had flaunted defiantly above the 
fort, sank down the staff" and in its stead rose a 
flag of stripes and stars. The machinery of con- 
quest, with Andrew Jackson at the crank, had 
pared oflF another slice of Florida. 

Jackson's capture of the fortifications having 
made the harbor untenable, the British blew up 
the Spanish forts at the Barrancas, which com- 
manded the harbor entrance, and departed, 
whereupon Jackson evacuated the town. His 
work in Pensacola was finished. Eight weeks 
later (January 8, 1815) he won his immortal vic- 

117 



The Road to Glory 

tory at New Orleans, with his untrained frontiers- 
men and scanty resources meeting and annihilat- 
ing the British regiments that had conquered 
Napoleon. At a single bound he leaped from 
the status of a backwoods soldier to one of the 
great leaders of his time. 

But the victory at New Orleans and the 
treaty of peace with England did not mean the 
end of fighting for Jackson. There were still 
several odd jobs to be done. During the war a 
British colonel named Nicholls had been sent on 
a secret mission to Florida in an attempt to in- 
cite the Seminoles, the fugitive Creeks, and the 
runaway negroes who infested the northern part 
of the province to harass the borders of the United 
States. While in Florida he built a fort on the 
Appalachicola River, not far above its mouth and 
well within Spanish territory, and collected there 
a large store of arms and ammunition. When the 
war ended and Colonel Nicholls was recalled, he 
turned the fort over to the Seminoles in the hope 
that it would prove a thorn in the side of the 
United States. From the Seminoles the place 
passed into the hands of the negro refugees and 
quickly became a source of anxiety to the Ameri- 
can military authorities on our southern border. 
But, though it was garrisoned by escaped slaves 

ii8 



The War That Wasn't a War 

and was a constant menace to the peace of the 
frontier, the Americans were powerless — accord- 
ing to international law, at least — because it was 
built on Spanish soil. But when the matter was 
referred to Jackson he showed how much he cared 
for international law by writing to General Gaines 
that the "Negro Fort," as it was called, "ought 
to be blown up, regardless of the ground on which 
it stands." That was all the hint that Gaines 
needed, and in July, 1816, he ordered an expedi- 
tion under Colonel Duncan CHnch to ascend the 
river and destroy the fort. As the flotilla ap- 
proached, a boat's crew which had been sent for- 
ward to reconnoitre was fired upon, whereupon 
the gunboats were warped up-stream until they 
were within range. The bombardment was of 
short duration, for scarcely had the gunboats 
opened fire before a red-hot shot struck the mag- 
azine of the fort, where eight hundred barrels 
of gunpowder were stored. In the explosion that 
followed, the fort vanished from the earth, and for 
some moments it fairly rained negroes — or parts 
of them. Of the three hundred and thirty-four 
inmates of the fort, two hundred and seventy 
were blown to kingdom come, and of the sixty- 
four left alive, all but three were so terribly in- 
jured that they died — which was just as well, 

119 



The Road to Glory 

perhaps, in view of what happened to two out 
of the three survivors. These, an Indian chief 
and Gar9on, the negro commander, were handed 
over to some friendly Seminoles to be put to death 
in the ingenious Indian fashion in retaHation for 
the death by torture of one of the American 
sailors, who had been taken prisoner a few days 
before. From all accounts, the Seminoles per- 
formed their task well but slowly. 

The destruction of the Negro Fort, though un- 
important in itself, served to stir up the uneasi- 
ness and discontent which prevailed along the 
Florida border and which was shared in by 
Creeks, Seminoles, Spaniards, and Americans. 
By March, 1817, several thousand whites had 
settled on the rich lands that Jackson had taken 
from the Creeks, and the friction which quickly 
developed between the new owners and the old 
ones, now fugitives in Florida, resulted in a series 
of defiances and depredations. While relations 
with the Indians were thus strained almost to 
the breaking point there again sprang up the his- 
toric irritation against Spain, whom the Ameri- 
can settlers accused, rightly or wrongly, of in- 
citing the Indians against them. Meanwhile 
President Monroe was negotiating for the pur- 
chase of Florida, for he fully realized that there 

120 



The War That Wasn't a War 

could be no permanent peace along the border as 
long as that province remained in Spanish hands. 
Doubtful of his success, however, he took care to 
see that an army under Jackson was stationed 
within striking distance, for there is no doubt 
that the government, now that the war with Eng- 
land was over, was determined to take Florida by 
force if it could not be obtained by purchase. 
Nor could anything give Jackson keener satisfac- 
tion than the prospect of once more getting his 
hands on the rich prize which he had joyfully 
held for a brief moment in 1814. Indeed, he 
frankly expressed his attitude when he wrote to 
President Monroe: "Let it be signified to me, 
through any channel, that the possession of the 
Floridas would be desirable to the United States, 
and in sixty days it will be accomplished." In 
other words, if the government wished to seize 
the province but lacked the courage to take the 
responsibihty, Jackson was ready to do the job 
himself. 

But suddenly a new element was injected into 
the already complicated situation. The series of 
revolts against Spanish rule in South America had 
attracted thither European adventurers, free- 
lances, and soldiers of fortune of many nationali- 
ties, and these, when the revolutionary business 

121 



The Road to Glory- 
grew dull in other places, turned their eyes to- 
ward Florida. It had a fertile soil, marvellous 
vegetation, a healthful climate, a notoriously weak 
government, and, everything considered, seemed 
to have been made to order for the filibusters. 
The first to make the attempt to **free" Florida 
was a Scottish nobleman. Sir Gregor MacGregor. 
No more picturesque character ever swaggered 
across the pages of our history. He was a pro- 
totype of Kipling's **The Man Who Would Be 
King." Resigning his commission in the British 
army, he went to Caracas in 1811 and offered his 
services to the Venezuelans in their struggle for 
independence. He became adjutant-general to 
Miranda and, upon the capture of that ill-fated 
leader, repeatedly distinguished himself in the re- 
newed struggle under Bolivar. He led a hand- 
ful of Venezuelans from Ocumare to Barce- 
lona in one of the most brilHant and skilfully 
conducted retreats in history and, upon Venezuela 
achieving her independence, was publicly thanked 
for his services by President Bolivar, commis- 
sioned a general of division, and decorated with 
the Order of Libertadores. But an ineradicable 
love of adventure ran in his veins; so, when peace 
settled for a time on war-torn Venezuela Mac- 
Gregor looked elsewhere for excitement. Florida 

122 



The War That Wasn't a War 

was still under the obnoxious rule of Spain, and 
Florida, he decided, needed to be freed. Early 
in 1817, therefore, he fitted out an expedition in 
Baltimore and descended upon Fernandina, which, 
as I have previously remarked, is built on the 
twenty-two-mile-long Amelia Island, off Florida's 
upper right-hand corner. MacGregor declared 
that as soon as he achieved the independence of 
the province he intended to hand it over to the 
United States, which was certainly thoughtful 
and considerate, seeing how much the United 
States wanted it; but nobody seems to have be- 
lieved him. His intentions were of small conse- 
quence, however, for a few months after he had 
seized the island and raised the green-cross flag, 
along came another adventurer, an Enghshman 
named Hubbard, and drove him off. Disap- 
pointed in his Floridan ambitions, MacGregor re- 
entered the service of Venezuela, and in 18 19, 
organizing an expedition in Jamaica, he eluded 
the vigilance of the British authorities and made 
a most daring descent upon Puerto Bello, which he 
captured after a desperate assault, though sub- 
sequently he was surprised by an overwhelming 
force of Spaniards and was forced to flee. In 1821 
he quitted the service of Venezuela — then become 
a part of the Colombian Republic — and settled 

123 



The Road to Glory 

among the Poyais Indians, a warlike tribe on the 
Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua, where he obtained 
a grant of a tract of fertile land and, making him- 
self ruler of the region, assumed the title of "his 
Highness the MacGregor, Cacique of Poyais." He 
organized a government, established an army, en- 
couraged commerce and agriculture, built roads 
and schools, cultivated plantations, and for nearly 
twenty years ruled in middle America as an in- 
dependent and enlightened sovereign. But mis- 
fortune finally overtook him; Great Britain de- 
clared a protectorate over his little kingdom, which 
was not abrogated until 1905, and its late ruler 
retired to Caracas, where the Venezuelan Govern- 
ment granted him a pension and restored him to 
his rank of general of division, and where he died, 
generally respected, in the early forties. 

Shortly after Hubbard had ejected MacGregor 
from Amelia Island, along came one of the latter's 
friends and companions in arms. Commodore Louis 
de Aury, who, as I have related in "Adventurers 
All,'' had himself been ousted from Galveston Island 
by Lafitte, and kicked out Hubbard. De Aury's 
plan was to make Florida a free and independent 
repubHc, such as her sister provinces in South 
America had become. But it was not to be. The 
government at Washington, which had other plans 

124 



The War That Wasn't a War 

for Florida, now decided it was time to interfere, 
for it seemed probable that Florida might soon be 
sold to the United States, provided the spirit of 
revolution and independence which was rapidly 
stripping Spain of her colonial possessions left her 
Florida to sell. Nothing was further from the in- 
tention of the United States, therefore, than to 
let these South American adventurers get a foot- 
hold in the province she had so long had a cov- 
etous eye upon; so, in the autumn of 1817, General 
Gaines was ordered to march on Fernandina and 
eject De Aury, while a fleet under Commodore 
Henley went down the coast for the same pur- 
pose. Henley reached there first and successfully 
accomplished the ejection, and the green-cross flag 
of the filibusters came down for good and all. 

About this time Indian depredations had re- 
commenced along the Florida frontier, and in 
November, 18 17, General Gaines despatched a 
detachment of troops to an Indian village called 
Fowltown, the headquarters of the hostile Semi- 
noles and Creeks. The troops approached the 
town at dawn and were fired upon, the village 
was taken and burned, and the United States had 
another Indian war upon its hands. Jackson was 
immediately ordered to take command of the 
operations. He jumped at the chance, for was 

125 



The Road to Glory 

this not the very opportunity for which he had 
been longing and praying ? The Indians caused 
him no concern, mind you; it was the Spaniards 
— and Florida — that he was after. Disregarding 
his instructions to raise his command from the 
militia of the border States, he recruited a volun- 
teer force from the Tennesseeans who had served 
under him at the Horseshoe Bend and New Or- 
leans and whom he could count on to follow him 
anywhere, and with these veterans at his back 
straightway crossed the Florida border. On the 
site of the Negro Fort he built and garrisoned an- 
other, which he called Fort Gadsden — all this in 
Spanish territory, mind you, though the United 
States was (officially, at least) at peace with 
Spain. Easily dispersing the few Seminoles who 
ventured to dispute his progress, he pushed south- 
ward to St. Marks (the port of Tallahassee), where 
a war party of Indians, he heard, had taken refuge. 
The fact that his information was incorrect and 
that there were no Indians in the town did not 
disconcert him in the least: he took the place, 
hauled down the Spanish colors, replaced them 
with the stars and stripes, and left an American 
garrison in occupation. Not only this, but he 
captured two Englishmen who had taken refuge 
in the town. One was a well-known trader named 

126 



The War That Wasn't a War 

Alexander Arbuthnot, who had had commercial 
dealings of one sort and another with the Indians; 
the other was a young officer of marines named 
Ambrister, a nephew of the governor of the Ba- 
hamas, who had been suspended from duty for a 
year for engaging in a duel and who had joined 
the Florida Indians out of a boyish love for ad- 
venture. Though captured on Spanish soil, Jack- 
son ordered both men tried by court martial for 
inciting the Indians to rebelHon. Both were sen- 
tenced to death. Ambrister died before a firing 
party; Arbuthnot was hung from the yard-arm of 
one of his own ships. Needlessly drastic and un- 
questionably illegal as these executions were, they 
brought home to those who were plotting against 
the United States that Spanish territory could 
not protect them. 

From St. Marks Jackson struck across coun- 
try to Suwanee, which was the headquarters of 
the notorious Billy Bowlegs; but in the skirmish 
that ensued that chieftain and his followers 
escaped, though, by means of a ruse unworthy 
of a civilized commander, he captured two 
of the most celebrated of the Seminole chief- 
tains, Francis and Himollimico. Seeing a vessel 
enter the harbor, the two chieftains, who had 
just returned from a visit to England, rowed out 

127 



The Road to Glory 

and asked to be afforded protection. They were 
courteously received, laid aside their weapons, 
and went below to have a drink with the com- 
mander, when they were seized, bound, and, upon 
protesting at this breach of hospitality, were in- 
formed that they were prisoners on an American 
gunboat which Jackson had despatched to patrol 
the coast in the hope of intercepting fugitives. 
The next day the two prisoners, by orders of 
Jackson, were summarily hung. By such ruth- 
less methods as these did the grim backwoods- 
man, who well deserved the title of "Old Hickory,'* 
which his soldiers bestowed upon him, impress on 
Indians and Spaniards alike the fact that those 
who opposed him need expect no mercy. He 
had reached Fort Gadsden on his return march 
when a protest against this unwarranted invasion 
of Spanish territory was sent him by the governor 
of Pensacola, the same place, you will remember, 
which he had captured three years before. Jack- 
son, who always carried a chip on his shoulder 
and Hved in hopes that some one would dare to 
knock it off, turned back on the instant, occu- 
pied Pensacola for the second time, captured the 
governor and his troops, deported them to Ha- 
vana with a warning never to return, and left an 
American garrison in occupation. He regretted 

128 



The War That Wasn't a War 

afterward, as he wrote to a friend, that he had 
not carried the place by storm and hanged the 
governor out of hand. 

In five months Jackson had broken the Indian 
power, estabHshed peace along the border, and to 
all intents and purposes added Florida to the 
Union. Though the Spanish minister at Wash- 
ington (for after the fall of Napoleon Spain re- 
sumed the foreign relations he had so rudely 
interrupted) vigorously protested against this inva- 
sion of the territory of his sovereign, he neverthe- 
less hastened — whether it was intended or not 
that his movements should be thus accelerated — 
to negotiate a treaty ceding Florida to the United 
States in consideration of our paying the claims 
held by American citizens against Spain to the 
amount of five million dollars. Though the his- 
torians dismiss the subject with the bald asser- 
tion that Florida was acquired by purchase — 
which, no doubt, is technically correct — I think 
you will agree with me that "conquest" is a more 
appropriate word and that its conqueror was the 
backwoods soldier Andrew Jackson. No wonder 
that the land he gave us yields so many oranges 
after having been fertilized with so much blood. 
No wonder that it has restored so many sick men 
after having swallowed up so many well ones. 

129 



THE FIGHT AT QUALLA BATTOO 



THE FIGHT AT QUALLA BATTOO 

IT was so hot that the httle group of sailors 
under the forward awnings lay stretched upon 
the deck, panting like hunted rabbits, while rivers 
of perspiration coursed down their naked chests 
and backs. The unshaded portions of the deck 
were as hot to the touch as the top of a stove; 
bubbles of pitch had formed along the seams be- 
tween the planks, and turpentine was exuding, like 
beads of sweat, from the spars. Though occasional 
puffs of land-wind stirred the folds of the Ameri- 
can flag which drooped listlessly from the tafFrail 
sufficiently to disclose the legend Friends hip, of 
Salem in raised and gilded letters on the stern, 
they brought about as much relief to the exhausted 
men as a blast from an open furnace door. Even 
the naked Malays who were at work under the 
direction of a profane and sweating first mate, 
transferring innumerable sacks of pepper from a 
small boat to the vessel's hold, showed the eflPects 
of the suffocating atmosphere by performing their 
task with more than ordinary Hstlessness and 
indolence. 



The Road to Glory 

Half a mile away the nipa-thatched huts of 
Qualla Battoo, built amid a thicket of palms on 
the sandy shores of a cove where a mountain tor- 
rent debouched into the sea, seemed to flicker like 
a scene on a moving-picture screen in the shifting 
waves of heat. Immediately at the back of the 
town rose the green wall of the Sumatran jungle, 
which bordered the yellow beach in both direc- 
tions as far as the eye could reach. Behind this 
impenetrable screen of vegetation, over which the 
miasma hung in wreathlike clouds, rose the purple 
peaks of the Bukit Barisan Range, of which Mount 
Berapi, twelve thousand feet high, is the grim and 
forbidding overlord. Upon this shore a mighty 
surf pounds unceasingly. Forming far to seaward, 
the tremendous rollers come booming in with the 
speed of an express train, gradually gathering 
volume as they near the shore until they tower 
to a height of twenty feet or more, when, striking 
the beach, they break upon the sands with a roar 
which on still nights can be heard up-country for 
many miles. So dangerous is the surf along this 
coast that when trading vessels drop anchor off 
its towns to pick up cargoes of pepper, copra, or 
coffee, they invariably send their boats ashore in 
charge of natives, who are as familiar with this 
threatening, thunderous barrier of foam as is a 

134 



The Fight at Qualla Battoo 

housewife with the cupboards in her kitchen. 
But even the Malays, marvellously skilful boat- 
men as they are, can effect a landing only at those 
places where the mountain streams, of which there 
are a great number along the western coast of 
Sumatra, have melted comparatively smooth chan- 
nels through the angry surf to the open sea. The 
pepper, which is one of the island's chief articles 
of export, is grown on the high table-lands in the 
interior and is brought down to the trading sta- 
tions on the coast by means of bamboo rafts, their 
navigation through the cataracts and rapids which 
obstruct these mountain streams being a perilous 
and hair-raising performance. 

Thus it came about that while the New Eng- 
land merchantman rocked lazily in the Indian 
Ocean swells on this scorching afternoon in Feb- 
ruary, 183 1, her master, Mr. Endicott, her second 
mate, John Barry, and four of her crew, were at 
the trading station, a short distance up the river 
from Qualla Battoo, superintending the weighing 
of the pepper and making sure that it was prop- 
erly stowed away in the boats where the water 
could not reach it, for, as Captain Endicott had 
learned from many and painful experiences, the 
Malays are not to be trusted in such things. Now, 
Captain Endicott had not traded along the coasts 

135 



The Road to Glory 

of Malaysia for a dozen years without learning 
certain lessons by heart, and one of them was that 
the lithe and sinewy brown men with whom he 
was doing business were no less cruel and treach- 
erous than the surf that edged their shores. Hence 
his suspicions Instantly became aroused when he 
noticed that the first boat, after being loaded at 
the trading station and starting for the river mouth 
Instead of making straight for the Friendship, as 
it should have done, stopped on Its way through 
the town and took aboard more men. Conclud- 
ing, however, that the Malay crew required addi- 
tional oarsmen In order to negotiate the unusually 
heavy surf, his suspicions were allayed and he 
turned again to the business of weighing out pep- 
per for the second boat-load, though he took the 
precaution, nevertheless, of detailing two of his 
men to keep their eyes on the boat and to in- 
stantly report anything which seemed out of the 
ordinary. 

Instead of taking on more oarsmen, as Captain 
Endicott had supposed, the boat's crew had ex- 
changed places with double their number of armed 
warriors, who, concealing their weapons, sent the 
boat smashing through the wall of surf and then 
pulled leisurely out toward the unsuspecting mer- 
chantman. Though the first mate, who was in 

136 



The Fight at Qualla Battoo 

charge of the loading, remarked that the boat had 
an unusually large crew, he drew the same con- 
clusions as the captain and permitted it to come 
alongside. No sooner was it made fast to the 
Friendship' s side, however, than the Malays, con- 
cealing their krises in their scanty clothing, began 
to scramble over the bulwarks, until a score or 
more of them were gathered on the vessel's decks. 
The mate, ever fearful of treachery, ordered them 
back into their boat, but the Malays, pretending 
not to understand him, scattered over the ship, 
staring at the rigging and equipment with the 
open-mouthed curiosity of children. So well did 
they play their parts, indeed, that the mate de- 
cided that his suspicions were unfounded and 
turned again to the work of checking up the bags 
of pepper as they came over the side. When the 
Malays had satisfied themselves as to the strength 
and whereabouts of the crew, whom they out- 
numbered three to one, they unostentatiously took 
the positions their leader assigned to them. Then, 
choosing a moment when the mate was leaning 
over the side giving orders to the men in the boat, 
one of their number, moving across the deck on 
naked feet with the stealth and silence of a cat, 
drew back his arm and with a vicious downward 
sweep buried his razor-edged kris between the 

137 



The Road to Glory 

American's brawny shoulders. Though mortally 
wounded, the mate uttered a scream of warn- 
ing, whereupon five of the sailors who had been 
lounging under the forward awning, snatching 
up belaying-pins and capstan-bars, ran to his 
assistance. But the Malays were too many for 
them and too well armed, and after a brief but 
desperate struggle two other Americans lay dead 
upon the blood-stained deck, while the other three, 
less fortunate, were prisoners with a fate too hor- 
rible for words in store for them. The four re- 
maining seamen, who had been below, aroused by 
the noise of the struggle, had rushed on deck in 
time to witness the fate of their comrades. Real- 
izing the utter helplessness of their position and 
appreciating that only butchery or torture awaited 
them if they remained, they burst through the 
ring of natives who surrounded them and dived 
into the sea. They quickly discovered, however, 
that the shore held no greater safety than the 
ship, for whenever they were lifted on the crest 
of a wave they could see that the beach was lined 
with armed warriors, whooping and brandishing 
their spears. Seeing that to land was but to in- 
vite death in one of its most unpleasant forms, 
the four swimmers held a brief consultation and 
then, abruptly changing their course, struck out 

138 



The Fight at Qualla Battoo 

for a rocky promontory several miles away, which 
offered them at least temporary safety, as the 
Malays could not readily reach them. 

In the meantime, the two seamen who had 
been detailed by Captain Endicott to keep watch 
of the boat, observing the confusion on the Friend- 
ship's decks and seeing the sailors jumping over- 
board, summoned their commander, who quickly 
surmised what had happened. Endicott realized 
that there was not an instant to lose. Ordering 
his second mate and the four seamen into the 
boat which was then being loaded, they pulled 
madly for the mouth of the river. Nor were they 
a second too soon, for, as they swung into that 
reach of the river which is bordered on either 
bank by the huts of the town, the Qualla Bat- 
tooans ran out and attempted to intercept them. 
But the Americans, spurred on by the knowledge 
that death awaited them if they were captured, 
bent to their oars, and, amid a rain of bullets, 
spears, and arrows, the boat swept through the 
town as a racing shell sweeps down the Hudson 
at Poughkeepsie. Though they succeeded by 
something akin to a miracle in reaching the 
mouth of the river unharmed, it now looked as 
though they would perish in the mountain-high 
surf, for they were ignorant of the channel and 

139 



The Road to Glory 

had none of the Malay skill for handling a boat 
in heavy breakers. But at this crucial moment 
they saw a man's head bobbing in the water along- 
side, a famiUar voice hailed them in English, and 
a moment later a friendly Malay named Po Adam, 
the rajah of a neighboring tribe which was on 
none too friendly terms with the Qualla Battooans, 
drew himself into the boat. 

"What on earth are you doing here, Adam?" 
exclaimed Endicott, when he recognized his caller 
from the sea. "Are you coming with us ?" 

"Yes, cap'n," said the Malay; "if they kill you 
they must kill me first." Po Adam, it seemed, 
had come to Qualla Battoo in his armed coasting 
schooner, had witnessed the capture of the Ameri- 
can vessel, and, fearing that the attack might be 
extended to him because of his known friendship 
for foreigners, he had swum to the American boat. 
With him for a pilot they managed, with extreme 
difficulty, to negotiate the breakers, though no 
sooner was this danger behind them than another 
one appeared in front, for the Malays, foiled in 
their attempt to intercept the Americans as they 
passed down the river, had put off in several war 
canoes, which could easily overtake them on the 
sea. The Americans were defenseless, for in their 
haste to embark they had left their weapons be- 

140 



The Fight at Qualla Battoo 

hind them. Po Adam, however, had managed to 
ding to his scimitar during his swim, and this he 
brandished so ferociously and uttered such appall- 
ing threats of what his tribesmen would do to 
the Qualla Battooans if he were molested that 
they sheered off without attacking. 

Realizing that it was foolhardiness to attempt 
to retake the Friendship with half a dozen men. 
Captain Endicott, after touching at the promon- 
tory to pick up the four sailors who had jumped 
overboard, regretfully laid his course for Muckie, 
Po Adam's capital, twenty miles down the coast. 
As he departed there rang in his ears the exul- 
tant shouts of the Malays who were looting his 
beloved vessel. Turning, he shook his fist in the 
direction of Qualla Battoo. "I'll come back 
again, my fine fellows," he muttered, "and when 
I do you'll wish to Heaven that you'd never 
touched Americans." 

Reaching Muckie late that night, the refugees 
were overjoyed to find in the harbor three Amer- 
ican merchantmen. No sooner had Endicott told 
his story to their commanders than they resolved 
to attempt the recapture of the Friendship, for 
they recognized the fact that, once the natives 
found that they could attack with impunity a 
vessel flying the stars and stripes, no American 

141 



The Road to Glory 

would be safe upon those coasts. This, remember, 
was in the days when we had no Asiatic squadron 
and when Americans doing business in that re- 
mote quarter of the globe had, in large measure, 
to settle such scores for themselves. There have, 
indeed, been hundreds of occasions on these far- 
distant seaboards, which the historians have either 
forgotten, or of which they have never known, 
when American merchant sailors engaged in as 
desperate actions and fought with as reckless 
courage against overwhelming odds as did ever 
the men who wore the navy blue. This was one of 
those occasions. In those days, when the fewness 
of prowling gunboats offered the pirates of Ma- 
laysia many opportunities to ply their trade, all 
merchantmen venturing into those waters went 
armed, and their crews were as carefully trained 
in cutlass drill and the handling of guns as they 
were in boat drill and in handling the sails. 
Therefore, notwithstanding the fact that their 
combined crews numbered barely half a hundred 
men, the three American ships which the next 
morning bore down on Qualla Battoo were not 
to be despised. 

To the message sent by the American captains 
to the rajah of Qualla Battoo demanding the 
immediate surrender of the Friendship, he re- 

142 



The Fight at Qualla Battoo 

turned the insolent reply: "Why don't you come 
and take her — if you can?" As soon as this 
message was received, the American vessels ran 
in to the shore as close as they dared and, bring- 
ing every gun to bear, opened fire upon the town, 
the forts at Qualla Battoo, which mounted sev- 
eral heavy guns, replying without effect. Though 
the bombardment destroyed a number of native 
huts, the American commanders quickly recog- 
nized that it was doing no serious harm and de- 
cided to get the business over with by making a 
boat attack on the Friendship and retaking her at 
the point of the cutlass. Three boats were accord- 
ingly lowered and, loaded with sailors armed 
to the teeth and eager to avenge their country- 
men, steered toward the Friendship, whose bul- 
warks were black with Malays. As the boats 
drew within range the Malays, who were armed 
with muskets of an antiquated pattern, greeted 
them with a heavy fire; several of the crews 
dropped forward, wounded, and for a moment the 
progress of the boats was checked. "Give way, 
men! Give way all!" bellowed the officers, and, 
thus steadied, the sailors bent again to their oars. 
As they swung alongside the Friendship the sailors 
at the bow and stern of each boat held it in place 
with boat-hooks, while the crews, pistols in their 

143 



The Road to Glory 

belts and cutlasses between their teeth, swarmed 
up the side in obedience to the order: "Boarders 
up and away!" They may have been amateurs 
at the business, these merchant seamen, but they 
did the job as though they were seasoned man-of- 
war's men with "U. S." stamped in gilt upon their 
hatbands. There have been few more gallant or 
daring actions in the history of the sea, for the 
boarders numbered less than twoscore men all 
told, and awaiting them on the decks above were 
three hundred desperate and well-armed natives. 
Though bullets and arrows and javelins were 
rained down upon them, the Americans went 
up the side with the agility of monkeys; though 
the Malays slashed at them with scimitars and 
krises and lunged at them with spears, the 
seamen, their New England fighting blood now 
thoroughly aroused, would not be denied. Scram- 
bling over the bulwarks, they fairly hewed their 
way into the mass of brown men, hacking, stab- 
bing, shooting, cursing, cheering — a line of grim- 
faced fighters sweeping forward as remorselessly 
as death. Before the ferocity of their attack the 
Malays, courageous though they were, became 
panic-stricken, broke, and ran, until, within five 
minutes after the Americans had set foot upon the 
Friendship's decks, such of the enemy as were not 

144 



The Fight at Qualla Battoo 

dead or wounded had leaped overboard and were 
swimming for the shore. Upon examining the 
vessel, Captain Endicott found that she had been 
rifled of everything that was portable, including 
twelve thousand dollars in coin. Even the copper 
bolts had been taken from her timbers and every- 
thing that could not be taken away had been 
wantonly destroyed. So great was the havoc that 
had been wrought that it was impossible to 
continue the voyage; so, after effecting tem- 
porary repairs at Muckie, Captain Endicott and 
the survivors of his crew sailed for home and, 
with the exception of one of them, out of this 
story. 

If the rajah of Qualla Battoo had been ac- 
quainted with the manner of man who at this 
time occupied the White House, he would prob- 
ably have thought twice before he molested an 
American vessel. With far less provocation than 
that given by the Malays, Andrew Jackson had 
virtually exterminated the powerful nation of the 
Creeks; defying the power of Spain, he had in- 
vaded the Floridas, captured Spanish forts, seized 
Spanish towns, and executed Spanish subjects. 
In fact, he was the very last man who could be 
affronted with impunity by any sovereign — much 
less by the ruler of an insignificant state in Ma- 

145 



The Road to Glory 

laysia. When the news of the attack on the 
Friendship and the murder of her American sailors 
reached Washington, the 44-gun frigate Potomac, 
Captain John Downes, lay in New York harbor 
waiting to convey Martin Van Buren, the newly 
appointed minister to the court of St. James, 
to England. But Jackson, who always wanted 
quick action, ordered Captain Downes to sail 
immediately for Sumatran waters and teach the 
Malays that, merely because they happened to 
dwell at the antipodes, they could not escape 
American retribution. 

On the 6th of February, 1832 — a year to a day 
after the treacherous attack on the Friendship — 
the Potomac appeared ofFQualla Battoo. As Cap- 
tain Downes had planned to give the Qualla Bat- 
tooans as much of a surprise as they had given 
Captain Endicott, he ordered the guns run in, 
the ports closed, the topmasts housed, and the 
Danish colors displayed, so that to the untrained 
native eye the big frigate would have the appear- 
ance of an unsuspecting merchantman. Even the 
officers and men who were sent in a whale-boat to 
take soundings and to choose a place for a land- 
ing were dressed in the nondescript garments of 
merchant sailors, so that the hundreds of Malays 
who lined the shore did not hesitate to threaten 

146 



The Fight at Qualla Battoo 

them with their weapons. John Barry, the second 
mate of the Friendship, had come with the expe- 
dition as a guide and from the whale-boat he had 
indicated to the officers the mouth of the river, 
where a landing could be effected with compara- 
tive ease. Everything being in readiness. Captain 
Downes issued orders that the landing would take 
place at midnight. The fact was impressed upon 
every one that if the Qualla Battooans were to be 
taken by surprise, the strictest silence must be 
observed. At the hour appointed, the men as- 
sembled at the head of the gangway on the side 
away from the town and, at the whispered order, 
noiselessly took their places in the waiting boats. 
Through a fragrance-laden darkness, under a pur- 
ple-velvet sky, the line of boats pulled silently for 
the shore, the occasional creak of an oar-lock or the 
clank of a cutlass being drowned by the thunder 
of the surf. As the keels grated on the beach, the 
men jumped out and formed into divisions in the 
darkness, the boats, with enough men to handle 
them, being directed to remain outside the line of 
breakers until they were needed. No time was 
lost in forming the column, which was composed t^lC^^ 
of a company of marines, a division of seamen, a 
division of musketeers and pikemen, and another 
division of seamen, the rear being brought up by 

147 



/«. 



The Road to Glory 

a gun crew dragging a six-pounder which the 
sailors had dubbed the "Betsy Baker." 

The Qualla Battooans, who were far from being 
on good terms with the neighboring tribes, had 
encircled their town with a chain of forts consist- 
ing of high stockades of sharpened teakwood logs 
loopholed for musketry. In the centre of each of 
these stockaded enclosures stood a platform raised 
on stilts to a height of fifteen or twenty feet, 
from which swivel-guns could sweep an attacking 
force and to which the defenders could retreat for 
a last desperate stand in case an enemy should 
succeed in taking the stockade. Barry, who was 
well acquainted with the defenses of the town, 
had drawn a map indicating the position of the 
various forts, so, as soon as the debarkation was 
completed, the divisions marched off to take up 
their positions in front of the forts which they 
had been designated to capture. To Lieutenant 
HufF, commanding the division of musketeers and 
pikemen, had been assigned the taking of the 
fort on the northern edge of the town, which was 
garrisoned by a strong force of Malays under 
Rajah Maley Mohammed, one of the most power- 
ful chieftains on the west coast of Sumatra. As 
the Americans stealthily approached in the hope 
of taking the garrison by surprise, their presence 

148 



The Fight at Qualla Battoo 

was discovered by a sentry and an instant later 
flame spurted from every loophole in the stock- 
ade as the defenders opened fire. The Yankee 
sailors paused only long enough to pour in a 
single volley and then, their bugles screaming the 
charge, raced for the stockade gate. It was built 
of solid teak and defied the efforts of the sailors 
to batter it down with their axes; whereupon a 
marine dashed forward with a bag of powder, a 
fuse was hastily attached and lighted, and when 
the smoke of the ensuing explosion cleared away 
the gates had disappeared. Through the breach 
thus made, the Americans poured and an instant 
later were at hand-grips with the enemy. For 
twenty minutes the struggle within the stockade 
was a bloody one, for the Malays fought with 
the courage of desperation, asking no quarter and 
giving none. But their numbers were unavaiHng 
against the discipline and determination of the 
Americans, who, by a series of rushes, drove the 
enemy before them until they finally retreated to 
the shelter of their high platform, drawing the 
ladders up after them. Now the struggle entered 
upon its most desperate phase, for the defenders, 
anticipating no mercy, prepared to sell their lives 
at the highest possible price. From the bamboo 
poles of which the huts were built the dexterous 

149 



The Road to Glory 

sailors quickly improvised ladders and, rushing 
forward under cover of a heavy rifle fire, planted 
them against the platform on all four sides. Then, 
while the riflemen picked off* every defender who 
ventured to expose himself, the sailors swarmed 
up the ladders, firing their pistols pointblank 
into the savage faces which glared down upon 
them from the platform's edge. It was a peril- 
ous feat, this assault by ladders on a platform 
held by a desperate and dangerous foe, but its very 
daring made it successful, and almost before the 
Malays realized what had happened the Ameri- 
cans had gained the platform and were at their 
throats. It was all over save the shouting. Those 
of the warriors who were not despatched by the 
sailors leaped from the platform only to be shot 
by the Americans below. It was a bloody busi- 
ness. The rajah fought with the ferocity of a 
Sumatran tiger, even after he was dying from a 
dozen wounds, slashing with his scimitar at every 
American who came within reach, until a bayo- 
net thrust from a marine sent him to the Moslem 
paradise. As he fell, a young and beautiful woman, 
who, from her dress, was evidently one of his wives, 
sprang forward and, snatching up the scimitar 
which had dropped from his nerveless fingers, at- 
tacked the Americans like a wildcat, laying open 

ISO 



JO 



The Fight at Qualla Battoo 

one man's head and slicing off the thumb of 
another. The sailors, loath to fight a woman — 
particularly one so young and lovely — fell back in 
momentary confusion, but as they attempted to 
surround her, she weakened from loss of blood 
caused by a stray bullet, the scimitar fell from her 
hand, and she fell forward dead across the body 
of her husband. 

While this struggle was in progress. Lieutenants 
Edson and(Tenett,' in command of the marines, 
had surprised the fort in the middle of the town, 
battered in the gates, and, after a brisk engage- 
ment, had routed the garrison. The first division 
of seamen, under Lieutenant Pinkham, had been kO^p-"^^ 
ordered to take the fort in the rear of the town, ' 
but it was so cleverly concealed in the jungle that 
Mr. Barry was unable to locate it in the darkness, 
whereupon Pinkham joined Lieutenant Shubrick's 
command in an assault upon the most formidable 
fort of all, which occupied an exceptionally strong 
position on the bank of the river. Here the reigning 
rajah of Qualla Battoo had collected several hun- 
dred of his best fighting men, who announced that 
they would die rather than surrender. And they 
kept their word. By this time daybreak was at 
hand, and as soon as the Americans came within 
range the Malays opened on them with their swivel- 

151 



,v 



The Road to Glory 

guns, which were mounted on the high platform 
in the centre of the stockade. Taking such shel- 
ter as they could find, the Americans opened a 
brisk rifle fire, but the walls were of teak, which 
turned a bullet as effectually as armor-plate, and 
it soon became evident that if the place was to 
be taken, some other means of attack must be 
adopted. Leaving sufficient men in front of the 
fort to keep the Malays fully engaged. Lieuten- 
ant Shubrick with the fusileers and the "Betsy 
Baker" made a detour, and, unobserved by the 
defenders, succeeded in reaching the river bank 
at the rear of the fort. But here the Americans 
met with a surprise, for, lying in the river, a few 
rods oflF the fort, were three large and heavily 
armed proas filled with warriors awaiting a favor- 
able opportunity to take a hand in the battle. 
But this was just such an opportunity as the gun 
crew had been hoping and praying for. Swinging 
their little field-piece into position, they trained it 
on the crowded deck of the nearest of the pirate 
craft, and the first intimation the Malays had 
that the Americans were in their vicinity was 
when they were swept by a storm of grape which 
turned their decks into a shambles. So deadly 
was the fire of the American gunners that, though 
the Malays succeeded in getting up sail on one 

152 



The Fight at Qualla Battoo 

of the proas and running her out of the river, the 
crews of the other two boats were compelled to 
jump overboard and swim to the opposite bank. 
Before they could escape into the bush, however, 
they were intercepted by a force of warriors under 
our old friend, Po Adam, who, having seen the 
approach of the Potomac and shrewdly suspecting 
that she was a war-ship, had hastily collected his 
fighting men and, slipping up the coast, had hov- 
ered in the jungle at the outskirts of the town, 
awaiting an opportunity to assist the Americans 
and, incidentally, to even up a few scores of his 
own. 

The proas thus disposed of. Lieutenant Shubrick 
ordered his bugler to sound the "charge," which 
was the signal agreed upon with the other portion 
of his force, whereupon they were to storm the 
citadel from the front while he attacked it from 
the rear. As the bugle sang its piercing signal, 
the gunners sent a solid shot from the "Betsy 
Baker" crashing into the gates of the fort, and 
at the same instant the whole line raced forward 
at the double. Though the gates were splintered, 
they were not down, but half a dozen brawny 
bluejackets sprang at them with their axes, and 
before their thunderous blows they went crashing 
in. But as the head of the storming column burst 

153 



The Road to Glory 

through the passageway thus opened they were 
met with a blast of lead which halted them as 
abruptly as though they had run against a gran- 
ite wall. A sailor spun about on his heels and 
collapsed, an inert heap, with a bullet through his 
brain; another clapped his hand to his breast 
and gazed stupidly at the ever-widening splotch 
of crimson on his tunic; all down the column could 
be heard the never-to-be-forgotten sound of bul- 
lets against flesh and the groans or imprecations 
of wounded men. "Come on, men ! Come on !" 
screamed the officers. "Get at the beggars ! Give 
'em the bayonet ! Get it over with ! All to- 
gether, now — here we go !" and, themselves setting 
the example, they plunged through the opening, 
cutlass in hand. For a few moments the battle 
was as desperate as any ever waged by Am.erican 
arms. The cutlasses of the sailors fell like flails, 
and when they rose again their burnished blades 
were crimson. The marines swung their bayo- 
nets like field-hands loading hay, and at every 
thrust a Malay shrieked and crumpled. Mean- 
while the little squad of artillerymen had dragged 
their gun to an eminence which commanded the 
interior of the stockade and from this place of 
vantage were sweeping bloody lanes through the 
crowded mass of brown men. But the Malays 

154 



The Fight at Qualla Battoo 

were no cowards. They knew how to fight and 
how to die. As fast as one man went down an- 
other sprang to take his place. The noise was 
deafening: the bang — bang — bang of muskets, the 
crack of pistols, the rasp of steel on steel, the 
deep-throated hurrahs of the sailors, the savage 
yells of the Malays, the groans and curses of 
the wounded, the gasps of the dying, the labored 
breathing of struggling men, the whole terrifying 
pandemonium punctuated at thirty-second inter- 
vals by the hoarse bark of the brass field-gun. 
Magnificently as the Malays fought, they could 
not stand against the cohesion and impetus of the 
American assault, which pushed them back and 
carried them off their feet as a Varsity football 
team does a team of scrubs. After a quarter of 
an hour of fighting the survivors of the garrison 
retreated to their platform in the air, leaving the 
space within the stockade carpeted with their 
dead and wounded. Even then the Malays never 
dreamed of surrendering, but constantly called 
down to the Americans in broken English to 
"Come and take us." To add to the confusion, if 
such a thing were possible, the portion of the 
stockade captured by Lieutenants Huff and Edson 
had, in pursuance of orders, been set on fire. So 
rapidly did the flames spread among the sun-dried, 

155 



The Road to Glory 

straw-thatched huts, however, that for a few min- 
utes it looked as though Lieutenant Shubrick's 
party would be cut off. The men handling the 
"Betsy Baker'' having run out of ammunition, a 
messenger was hastily despatched to the boats for 
more and returned on a run with several bags of 
bullets. One of these was stuffed into the muzzle 
and the little gun was trained on the Malays who 
occupied every foot of the aerial retreat. When 
the smoke cleared away it was seen that the bag 
of bullets, fired at such close range, had created 
awful havoc among the defenders, for dead and 
dying men were scattered everywhere. Instantly 
Shubrick appreciated that now was his time to 
act, before the Malays had an opportunity to re- 
cover from their confusion. "Now's our chance, 
boys!'' he shouted. "Let's get up on top there 
and clean out the nest of niggers." At the words, 
his bluejackets rushed forward with a cheer. 
Nothing could stop them. Some ascended hastily 
constructed ladders; others swarmed up the poles 
which supported the platform as they were ac- 
customed to swarm up the masts at sea, wriggling 
over the edge of the platform, emptying their pis- 
tols into the snarling countenances above them, 
and, once on their feet, going at the Malays with 
cold steel. The battle in the air was short and 

156 



The Fight at Qualla Battoo 

savage. In five minutes not an unwounded Ma- 
lay remained within the citadel, and, amid a hur- 
ricane of cheers, the star-spangled banner was 
broken out from the staff where so lately had 
flaunted the standard of the rajah — the first time 
that our flag was ever raised over a fortification 
on Asiatic soil. 

By this time, the Qualla Battooans were so 
thoroughly demoralized that the capture of the 
two remaining forts was eflFected with compara- 
tively little difficulty. The companies composing 
the expedition now fell in upon the beach, and the 
roll was called to ascertain the casualties and to 
learn if any men had been left in the jungle. It 
was found that the Americans had had only two 
killed and eleven wounded — an amazingly small ^^ 
loss in view of the desperate character of the fight- 
ing. The Malays, on the other hand, though 
fighting from behind fortifications, lost upward 
of four hundred men. 

The next day, learning that the Malays were 
still defiant and that a large force of warriors was 
gathering at the back of the town. Captain Downes 
weighed anchor and, standing as close inshore as 
the water permitted, opened fire with his heavy 
guns, completing the destruction of the forts, set- 
ting fire to the town, and killing a considerable 

157 



The Road to Glory 

number of warriors. For more than an hour the 
bombardment continued, the American gunners 
choosing their marks, laying their guns, and plac- 
ing their shots with the same coolness and accu- 
racy which, years later, was to distinguish their 
successors at Santiago and Vera Cruz. The 
Qualla Battooans were even more terrified by 
the thunder of the Potomac^s broadsides than by 
the havoc that they wrought, for they had never 
heard big guns or seen a war-ship in action before. 
Soon white flags began to appear at various spots 
along the beach, and when, in acknowledgment 
of the signal, the bombardment ceased, a proa 
set out through the surf toward the frigate. As 
it came alongside it was found to contain emis- 
saries from the surviving rajahs who had come 
to beg for peace. The awed and humbled chief- 
tains passed between double ranks of bluejackets 
and marines to the quarter-deck, where they were 
received by Captain Downes, who was in full uni- 
form and surrounded by a glittering staff. Noth- 
ing was left undone to impress the Malays with 
the might and majesty of the nation they had 
offended or their own insignificance, they being 
compelled to approach the American commander 
on their knees, bowing their heads to the deck at 
every yard. But they had had their lesson; 

158 



The Fight at Qualla Battoo 

their insolence and haughtiness had disappeared; 
all they wanted was peace — peace at any price. 

The next morning the crew of the Potomac were 
gladdened by the cheery notes of the bo'sn's whis- 
tle piping: "All hands up anchor for home." Her 
mission had been accomplished. As the splendid 
black-hulled vessel stood out to sea under a cloud 
of snowy canvas, the grim muzzles of her four 
and forty guns peering menacingly from her open 
ports, the chastened and humbled survivors of 
Qualla Battoo stood on the beach before their 
ruined town and watched her go. At the mouths 
of her belching guns they had learned the lesson 
that the arm of the great republic is very long, 
and that if need be it will reach half the world 
around to punish and avenge. 



1 59 



UNDER THE FLAG OF THE LONE STAR 



UNDER THE FLAG OF THE LONE STAR 

HAD you stood on the banks of the Brazos 
in December of the year in which the 
nineteenth century became old enough to vote 
and looked northeastward across the plains of 
central Texas, your attention would doubtless 
have been attracted by a rolHng cloud of dust. 
From out its yellow haze would have crept in 
time a straggling line of canvas-covered wagons. 
Iron-hard, bearded men, their faces tanned to the 
color of a much-used saddle, strode beside the 
wheels, their long-lashed blacksnakes cracking 
spasmodically, like pistol-shots, between the horns 
of the plodding oxen. Weary-faced women in 
sunbonnets and calico, with broods of barelegged, 
frowzy-headed youngsters huddled about them, 
peered curiously from beneath the arching 
wagon-tops. A thin fringe of scouts astride of 
wiry ponies, long-barrelled rifles resting on the 
pommels of their saddles, rode on either flank of 
the slowly moving column. Other groups of 
alert and keen-eyed horsemen led the way and 
brought up the rear. Though these dusty mi- 
grants numbered less than half a thousand in all, 

163 



The Road to Glory 

though their garments were uniform only in their 
stern practicaHty and their shabby picturesque- 
ness, though their only weapons were hunting 
rifles and the only music to which they marched 
was the rattle of harness and the creak of axle- 
trees, they formed, nevertheless, an army of in- 
vasion, bent on the conquest not of a people, 
however, but of a wilderness. 

Who that saw that dusty column trailing across 
the Texan plains would have dreamed that these 
gaunt and shabby men and women were destined 
to conquer and civilize and add to our national 
domain a territory larger than the German Em- 
pire, with Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium 
thrown in ? Yet that trek of the pioneers, ''south- 
westerly by the lone star," was the curtain-raiser 
for that most thrilling of historic dramas, or 
rather, melodramas: the taking of Texas. 

To understand the significance of that chain of 
startling and picturesque events which began with 
the stand of the settlers on the Guadalupe and 
culminated in the victory on the San Jacinto 
without at least a rudimentary knowledge of the 
conditions which led up to it is as impossible as 
it would be to master trigonometry without a 
knowledge of arithmetic. But do not worry for 
fear that you will be bored by the recital; the 

164 



Under the Flag of the Lone Star 

story is punctuated much too frequently with 
rifle-shots and pistol-shots for you to yawn or 
become sleepy-eyed. 

The American colonization of Texas — then 
known as the province of New Estremadura — 
began while Spain still numbered Mexico among 
her colonial possessions. When Iturbide ended 
Spanish rule in Mexico, in 1821, and thereby made 
himself Emperor of the third largest nation in 
the world (China and Russia alone being of 
greater area), he promptly confirmed the land 
grants which had been made by the Spanish au- 
thorities to the American settlers in Texas, both 
he and his immediate successors being only too 
glad to further the development of the wild and 
almost unknown region above the Rio Grande by 
these hardy, thrifty, industrious folk from the 
north. Under this official encouragement an 
ever-growing, ever-widening stream of American 
emigration went rolling Texasward. The forests 
echoed to the axe strokes of woodsmen from Ken- 
tucky; the desert was furrowed by the plough- 
shares of Ohio farmers; villages sprang up along 
the rivers; the rolling prairies were dotted with 
patches of ripening grain. Texas quickly became 
the magnet which drew thousands of the needy, 
the desperate, and the adventurous. Men of 

165 



The Road to Glory 

broken fortunes, men of roving habits, adven- 
turers, land speculators, disappointed politicians, 
unsuccessful lawyers, men who had left their 
country for their country's good, as well as mul- 
titudes of sturdy, thrifty, hard-working folk de- 
sirous of finding homes for their increasing fami- 
lies poured into the land of promise afoot and 
on horseback, by boat and wagon-train, until, by 
1823, there were probably not far from twenty 
thousand of these American outlanders estab- 
lished between the Sabine and the Pecos. 

Meanwhile the government of Mexico was be- 
ginning the quick-change act with which it has 
alternately amused and exasperated and angered 
the world to this day. The short-lived empire of 
Iturbide lasted but a year, the Emperor meeting 
his end with his back to a stone wall and his face 
to a firing-party. Victoria proclaimed Mexico a 
republic and himself its President. Pedraza suc- 
ceeded him in 1828. Then Guerrero overthrew 
Pedraza, and Bustamente overthrew Guerrero, 
and Santa Anna overthrew Bustamente and made 
himself dictator, ruling the war-racked country 
with an iron hand. Now, a dictator, if he is to 
hold his job, much less enjoy any peace of mind, 
must rule a people who, either through fear or 
ignorance, are willing to forget about their con- 

166 



Under the Flag of the Lone Star 

stitutional rights and obligingly refrain from ask- 
ing questions. But the American settlers in Texas, 
as each of the Mexican usurpers discovered in his 
turn and to his very great annoyance, were not 
built according to these specifications. They were 
not ignorant, and they were not in the least afraid, 
and when the privileges they had enjoyed were 
revoked or curtailed they resented it emphatically. 

Alarmed by the rapid increase in the number of 
American settlers, disturbed by their independence 
and self-reliance, and realizing that they were 
daily becoming a greater menace to the dictatorial 
and dishonest methods of government which pre- 
vailed, the Mexican dictators determined to crush 
them before it was too late. In pursuance of this 
policy they inaugurated a systematic campaign 
of persecution. Sixty-odd years later the Boers 
adopted the same attitude toward the British set- 
tlers in the Transvaal that the Mexicans did to- 
ward the American settlers in Texas, and the same 
thing happened in both cases. 

For three years after Mexico achieved its in- 
dependence Texas was a separate State of the 
republic, with a government of its own. But in 
1824, in pursuance of this anti-American policy, 
it was deprived of the privilege of self-government 
and added to the State of Coahuila. Shortly after 

167 



The Road to Glory 

this a law was passed forbidding the further settle- 
ment of Americans in Texas and prohibiting Amer- 
icans from even trading in that region. And, to 
still further harass and humiliate the Texans, a 
number of penal settlements, composed of the most 
desperate criminals in the Mexican prisons, were 
established in Texas. Heretofore the Texans, 
in recognition of their services in transforming 
Texas from a savage wilderness into a civilized 
and prosperous province, had enjoyed immu- 
nity from taxes, but now custom-houses were 
established and the settlers were charged pro- 
hibitive duties even on the necessities of life. 
When they protested against so flagrant an in- 
justice the Mexican Government answered them 
by blockading their ports. Heavy garrisons were 
now quartered in the principal towns, the civil 
authorities were defied, and the settlers were sub- 
jected to the tyranny of unrestrained military 
rule. Still the Texans did not offer armed resis- 
tance. Their tight-drawn patience snapped, how- 
ever, when, in 1834, Santa Anna, determined to 
crush for good and all the sturdy independence 
which animated them, ordered his brother-in-law, 
General Cos, to enter Texas with a force of fif- 
teen hundred men and disarm the Americans, 
leaving only one rifle to every five hundred in- 

168 



Under the Flag of the Lone Star 

habitants. That order was all that was needed 
to fan the smouldering embers of Texan resent- 
ment into the fierce flame of armed revolt. Were 
they to be deprived of those trusty rifles which 
they had brought with them on their long pil- 
grimage from the north, which were their only 
resource for game, their only defense against In- 
dians, their only means of resistance to oppres- 
sion ? Those were the questions that the settlers 
asked themselves, and they answered them at 
Gonzales, on the banks of the Guadalupe. 

At Gonzales was a small brass field-piece which 
had been given to the settlers as a protection from 
the Indians. A detachment of Mexican cavalry, 
some eightscore strong, was ordered to go to the 
town, capture the cannon, and disarm the inhabi- 
tants. News of their coming preceded them, 
however, and when the troopers reached the banks 
of the river opposite the town they found that all 
the boats had been taken to the other side, while 
the cannon which they had come to capture was 
drawn up in full view with a placard hanging 
from it. The placard bore the ominous invita- 
tion: "Come and take it." The Mexican com- 
mander, spurring his horse to the edge of the 
river, insolently called upon the inhabitants to give 
up their arms. It was the same demand, made 

169 



The Road to Glory 

for the same purpose, which an officer in a scar- 
let coat had made of another group of Americans, 
threescore years before, on the village green at 
Lexington. It was the same demand ! And the 
same answer was given: "Come and take our 
weapons — if you can !" Though the Mexican of- 
ficer had a force which outnumbered the settlers 
almost ten to one, he prudently decided to wait, 
for even in those days the fame of the Texan rifle- 
men had spread across the land. 

Meanwhile horsemen had carried the news of 
the raid on Gonzales to the outlying ranches and 
soon the settlers came pouring in until by night- 
fall they very nearly equalled the soldiery in num- 
ber. Knowing the moral effect of getting in the 
first blow, they slipped across the river in the 
dark and charged the Mexican camp with an im- 
petuosity and fierceness which drove the troopers 
back in panic-stricken retreat. As the Texans 
were going into action a parson who accompanied 
them shouted: "Remember, men, that we're fight- 
ing for our liberty ! Our wives, our children, our 
homes, our country are at stake ! The strong arm 
of Jehovah will lead us on to victory and to glory ! 
Come on, men ! Come on !" 

The news of this victory, though insignificant in 
itself, was as kindling thrown on the fires of in- 

170 



Under the Flag of the Lone Star 

surrection. The settlers in Texas rose as one. In 
October, 1835, in a pitched battle near the Mis- 
sion of the Immaculate Conception, outside of 
San Antonio, ninety-four Texan farmers, fresh 
from the plough, whipped four times that num- 
ber of Mexicans. In December, after a five days' 
siege, the Alamo, in San Antonio, was carried by 
storm. General Cos and fourteen hundred Mexican 
regulars, with twenty-one pieces of artillery, sur- 
rendering to less than four hundred Texans. By 
Christmas of 1835 Texas was left without an 
armed enemy within her borders. 

When word was brought to Santa Anna that 
the garrison of the Alamo had surrendered, he 
behaved like a madman. With clinched fists and 
uplifted arms he swore by all the saints in the 
calendar and all the devils in hell that he would 
never unbuckle his sword-belt until Texas was 
once again a wilderness and every gringo settler 
was a fugitive, a prisoner, or a corpse. As it was 
at San Antonio that the Mexicans had suffered 
their most humihating defeat, so it was San An- 
tonio that the dictator chose as the place where 
he would wash out that defeat in blood, and on 
the 22d of February, 1836, he appeared before 
the city at the head of six thousand troops — the 
flower of the Mexican army. After their capture 

171 



The Road to Glory 

of San Antonio the Texans, most of whom were 
farmers, had returned to their homes and their 
crops, Colonel W. Barrett Travis being left to 
hold the town with only one hundred and forty- 
five men. With him were Davy Crockett, the 
stories of whose exploits on the frontier were al- 
ready familiar in every American household, Bon- 
ham, the celebrated scout and Indian fighter, and 
James Bowie, who, in a duel on the Natchez River 
bar, had made famous the terrible long-bladed 
knife which his brother Rezin had made from a 
blacksmith's file. A few days later thirty-seven 
brave hearts from Goliad succeeded in breaking 
through the lines of the besiegers, bringing the 
total strength of the garrison up to one hundred 
and eighty-three. Surrounding them was an 
army of six thousand ! 

The story of the last stand in the Alamo has 
been told so often that I hesitate to repeat it 
here. Yet it is a tale of which Americans can 
never tire any more than they can tire of the 
story of Jones and the Bonhomme Richard, or 
of Perry at Lake Erie. The Texans, too few in 
numbers to dream of defending the town, with- 
drew into the Alamo, an enormously thick-walled 
building, half fortress and half church, which de- 
rived its name from being built in a clump of 

172 



Under the Flag of the Lone Star 

alamos or cottonwood trees. For eleven days the 
Mexicans pounded the building with artillery and 
raked it with rifle fire; for eleven days the Texans 
held them back in that historic resistance whose 
details are so generally and so uncertainly known. 
Day after day the defenders strained their eyes 
across the prairie in search of the help that never 
came. Day after day the blood-red flag that 
signified "No quarter" floated above the Mexi- 
can lines, while from the walls of the Alamo 
flaunted defiantly the flag with a single star. 

At sunset on the 4th of March the Mexican 
bombardment abruptly ceased, but no one knew 
better than Travis that it was but the lull which 
preceded the breaking of the storm. Drawing 
up his men in the great chapel, Travis drew a 
line across the earthen floor with his sword. 

**Men,'* he said, "it's all up with us. A few 
more hours and we shall probably all be dead. 
There's no use hoping for help, for no force that 
our friends could send us could cut its way through 
the Mexican lines. So there's nothing left for it 
but to stay here and go down fighting. When 
the greasers storm the walls kill them as they 
come and keep on killing them until none of us 
are left. But I leave it to every man to decide 
for himself. Those who wish to go out and sur- 



The Road to Glory 

render may do so and I shall not reproach them. 
As for me, I shall stay here and die for Texas. 
Those who wish to stay with me will step across 
this line." 

There was not so much as a flicker of hesita- 
tion. The defenders moved across the line as 
one. Even the wounded staggered over with the 
others, and those who were too badly wounded 
to walk dragged themselves across on hands and 
knees. Bowie, who was ill with fever, lay on his 
cot, too weak to move. "Boys," he called feebly, 
"boys, I don't believe I can get over alone . . . 
won't some of you help me?" So they carried 
him across the Hne, bed and all. It was a pic- 
ture to stir the imagination, to send the thrills of 
patriotism chasing up and down one's spine: the 
gloomy chapel with its adobe walls and raftered 
ceiling; the line of stern-faced, powder-grimed men 
in their tattered frontier dress, crimsoned band- 
ages knotted about the heads of many of them; 
the fever-racked but indomitable Bowie stretched 
upon his cot; the young commander — for Travis 
was but twenty-seven — striding up and down, in 
his hand a naked sword, in his eyes the fire of 
patriotism. 

On the morning of the 6th of March, before 
the sun had risen, Santa Anna launched his grand 

174 



Under the Flag of the Lone Star 

assault. Their bugles sounding the ominous notes 
of the degiiello, which signified that no quarter 
would be given, the Mexican infantry, provided 
with scaling-ladders, swept forward at the double. 
Behind them rode the cavalry, with orders to 
sabre any man who flinched. As the Mexican 
columns came within range the Texans met them 
with a blast of lead which shrivelled and scattered 
them as the breath of winter shrivels and scatters 
the autumn leaves. The men behind the walls 
of the Alamo were master marksmen who had 
taken their degree in shooting from the stern col- 
lege of the frontier, and they proved their mar- 
vellous proficiency that day. Crockett and Bon- 
ham aimed and fired as fast as rifles could be 
loaded and passed up to them, and at every spurt 
of flame a little, brown-faced man would drop with 
a crimson patch on the breast of his tunic or a 
round blue hole in his forehead. Any troops on 
earth would have recoiled in the face of that 
deadly fire, and Santa Anna's were no exception. 
But the cavalry rode into them and at the point 
of their sabres forced them again to the attack. 
Again the shattered regiments advanced and at- 
tempted to place their ladders against the walls, 
but once more the sheer ferocity of the Texan de- 
fense sent them reeling back, bleeding and gasp- 

I7S 



The Road to Glory 

ing. But there was a limit even to the powers 
of resistance of the Texans. The powder in their 
horns ran low; their arms grew weak from slay- 
ing. So, when the wave of brown-skinned soldiery 
rolled forward once again over its carpet of corpses, 
it topped and overflowed the desperately defended 
walls. The Texans, whose ammunition was vir- 
tually exhausted, were beaten back by sheer 
weight of numbers, but they ralHed in the patio 
and, under the sky of Texas, made their final 
stand. What happened afterward is, and always 
must be, a matter of speculation. No one knows 
the story of the end. Even the number of vic- 
tims is a matter of dispute to-day. Some say 
there were a hundred and eighty-three defenders, 
some say a hundred and eighty-six. Some assert 
that one woman escaped; some say two; others 
say none. Some declared that a negro servant 
got away; others declare with equal positiveness 
that he did not. Some state that half a dozen 
Americans stood at bay with their backs to the 
wall, Crockett among them. That the Mexican 
general, Castrillon, offered them their lives if they 
would surrender, and that, when they took him 
at his word, he ordered them shot down Hke 
dogs. (Since then a Mexican's word has never 
been good for anything in Texas.) All we do 

176 



Under the Flag of the Lone Star 

know with any certainty of what went on within 
those blood-bespattered walls is that every Ameri- 
can died fighting. Travis, revolver in one hand 
and sword in the other, went down amid a ring 
of men that he had slain. Bowie, propped on his 
pillows, shot two soldiers who attempted to bayo- 
net him as he lay all but helpless and plunged 
his terrible knife into the throat of another before 
they could finish him. Crockett, so the Mexicans 
related afterward, fought to the last with his 
broken rifle, and was killed against the wall, but 
to get at him the Mexicans had to scramble over 
a heap of their own dead. No one will ever know 
how many of the enemy each of these raging, 
fighting, cornered men sent down the long and 
gloomy road before he followed them. The pave- 
ment of the patio was scarlet. The dead lay piled 
in heaps. Not an American remained alive. 
Death and Santa Anna held the place. As the 
inscription on the monument which was raised in 
later years to the defenders reads: "Thermopylae 
had her messenger of defeat; the Alamo had none." 
But before they died, the ninescore men who laid 
down their lives for Texas sent sixteen hundred 
Mexicans to their last accounting. 

By order of Santa Anna, the bodies of the 
Texans were collected in a huge pile and burned, 

177 



The Road to Glory 

while the Mexican dead — sixteen hundred of 
them, please remember — were buried in the local 
cemetery. As Bowie's body was brought out, 
General Cos remarked : " He was too brave a man 
to be burned like a dog — but never mind, throw 
him in." As the Sabbath sun sank slowly into 
the west the smoke of the funeral pyre rose against 
the blood-red sky Uke a column draped in mourn- 
ing. It marked something more than the end of 
a band of heroes; it marked the end of Mexican 
dominion above the Rio Grande. 

While Santa Anna was besieging the Alamo, 
General Urrea invaded eastern Texas for the pur- 
pose of capturing San Patricio, Refugio, and Go- 
liad and thus stamping out the last embers of in- 
surrection. It was not a campaign; it was a 
butchery. The little garrison of San Patricio was 
taken by surprise and every man put to death. 
At Refugio, however, a force of little more than 
a hundred men under Colonel Ward repulsed the 
Mexicans, whose loss in killed and wounded was 
double the entire number of the defenders. A 
few days later, however, Ward and his men, 
while falling back, were surrounded and taken 
prisoners. When Urrea's column appeared before 
Goliad, Colonel Fannin, whose force was out- 
numbered six to one, ordered a retreat, feeling 

178 




Bowie, propped on his pillows, shot two soldiers and plunged 
his terrible knife into the throat of another. 



Under the Flag of the Lone Star 

confident that the Mexicans, for whose fighting 
abihties the Texans had the utmost contempt, 
would not dare to follow them. But the Texans 
made the fatal mistake of underrating their ad- 
versaries, for, before they had fallen back a dozen 
miles, they found themselves hemmed in by two 
thousand Mexicans. Escape was out of the ques- 
tion, so Fannin formed his three hundred men in 
hollow square and prepared to put up one of 
those fight-till-the-last-man-falls resistances for 
which the Texans had become famous. Being 
cut off from water, however, and with a third of 
his men wounded, he realized that his chances of 
success were represented by a minus sign; so, 
when the Mexican commander, who had been 
heavily reinforced, offered to parole both officers 
and men and return them to the United States 
if they would surrender, Fannin accepted the offer 
and ordered his men to stack their arms. The 
terms of the surrender were written in both Eng- 
lish and Spanish, and were signed by the ranking 
officers of both forces with every formality. 

The Texan prisoners were marched back under 
guard to Gohad, the town they had so recently 
evacuated, and were confined in the old fort, 
where they were joined a few days later by Colo- 
nel Ward's command, who, as you will remem- 

179 



The Road to Glory 

ber, had also been captured. On the night of 
the 26th of March a despatch rider rode into 
Urrea's camp bearing a message from Santa Anna. 
It contained an order for the murder of all the 
prisoners. The next day was Palm Sunday. At 
dawn the Texans were awakened and ordered 
to form ranks in the courtyard. They were then 
divided into four parties and marched ofF in dif- 
ferent directions under heavy guard. They had 
not proceeded a mile across the prairies before 
they were halted and their captors deliberately 
poured volley after volley into them until not a 
Texan was left standing. Then the cavalry rode 
over the corpse-strewn ground, hacking with their 
sabres at the dead. Upward of four hundred 
Texans were slaughtered at Goliad. The de- 
fenders of the Alamo died fighting with weapons 
in their hands, but these men were unarmed and 
defenseless prisoners, butchered in cold blood in 
one of the most atrocious massacres of history. 

With the extermination of the Texan garrisons, 
Santa Anna complacently assured himself that his 
work in the north was finished and prepared to 
return to the capital, where he was badly needed. 
It is never safe, you see, for a dictator to leave 
the chair of state for long, else he is likely to re- 
turn and find a rival sitting in it. Now, however, 

180 



Under the Flag of the Lone Star 

Santa Anna felt that the Texan uprising was, to 
make use of a slangy but expressive phrase, all 
over but the shouting. But the Texans, as stout 
old John Paul Jones would have put it, had only 
just begun to fight. Learning that a force of 
Texan volunteers was mobilizing upon the San 
Jacinto, the "Napoleon of the West,'' as Santa 
Anna modestly described himself, decided to de- 
lay his departure long enough to invade the 
country north of Galveston and put the finishing 
touches to the subjugation of Texas by means of 
a final carnival of blood and fire. Theoretically, 
everything favored the dictator. He had money; 
he had ample supplies of arms and ammunition; 
he had a force of trained and seasoned veterans 
far outnumbering any with which the Texans 
could oppose him. It was to be a veritable pic- 
nic of a campaign, a sort of butchers' holiday. In 
making his plans, however, Santa Anna failed to 
take a certain gentleman into consideration. The 
name of that gentleman was Sam Houston. 

The chronicles of our frontier record the name 
of no more picturesque and striking figure than 
Houston. The fertile brain of George A. Henty 
could not have made to order a more satisfactory 
or wholly improbable hero. Though his exploits 
are a part of history, they read like the wildest 

i8i 



The Road to Glory 

fiction. That is why, perhaps, the dry-as-dust 
historians make so Httle mention of him. The 
incidents in his hfe would provide a moving-pic- 
ture company with material for a year. Born in 
the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, his father, 
who had been an officer in the Revolution, an- 
swered to the last roll-call when young Sam had 
barely entered his teens. The support of a large 
and growing family thus falling upon the ener- 
getic shoulders of Mrs. Houston, she packed her 
household goods in a prairie-schooner and moved 
with her children to Tennessee, then upon the 
very edge of civilization. Here Sam, who had 
learned his "three R's" in such poor schools as 
the Virginia of those early days afforded, attended 
a local academy for a time. Translations of the 
classics having fallen into his hands, his imagina- 
tion was captured by the exploits of the heroes 
of antiquity, and he asked permission of the prin- 
cipal to study Latin, which, for some unexplain- 
able reason, was curtly refused him. Whereupon 
he walked out of the academy, declaring that he 
would never repeat another lesson. 

His family, who had scant sympathy with his 
romantic fancies, procured him a job as clerk in 
a crossroads store. Within a fortnight he was 
missing. After some months of anxiety his rela- 

182 



Under the Flag of the Lone Star 

tives learned that he was Hving among the Cher- 
okee Indians across the Tennessee. When one of 
his brothers attempted to induce him to return 
home, young Sam answered that he preferred 
measuring deer tracks to measuring tape, and 
that, if he was not permitted to study Latin in 
the academy, he could at least dig it out for him- 
self in the freedom of the woods. Houston dwelt 
for several years with his Cherokee friends, even- 
tually being adopted as a son by the chieftain 
Oolooteka. Upon the outbreak of our second 
war with Great Britain he enlisted in the Ameri- 
can army. Though his friends remonstrated with 
him for entering the army as a private soldier, 
his mother was made of different stuff. As he 
was leaving for the front she took down his father's 
rifle and, with tear-dimmed eyes, handed it to her 
son. **Here, my boy," she said bravely, though 
her voice quavered, "take this rifle and never 
disgrace it. Remember that I would rather that 
all my sons should lie in honorable graves than 
that one of them should turn his back to save 
his life. Go, and God be with you, but never 
forget that, while my door is always open to brave 
men, it is always shut to cowards.'* 

Houston quickly climbed the ladder of promo- 
tion, obtaining a commission within a year after 

183 



The Road to Glory 

he had enlisted as a private. He first showed the 
stern stuff of which he was made when taking 
part in General Jackson's campaign against the 
Creek Indians. His thigh pierced by an arrow 
during the storming of the Indian breastworks at 
Tohopeka, Houston asked a fellow officer to draw 
it out. But it was sunk so deeply in the flesh 
that the attempt to extract it brought on an 
alarming flow of blood, whereupon the officer re- 
fused to proceed, fearing that Houston would 
bleed to death. Thereupon the fiery youngster 
drew his sword. "Draw it out or Til run you 
through!" he said. Out the arrow came. Gen- 
eral Jackson, who had witnessed the incident and 
had noted the seriousness of the young officer's 
wound, ordered him to the rear, but Houston, 
mindful of his mother's parting injunction, dis- 
regarded the order and plunged again into the 
thick of the battle. It was a breach of discipline, 
however, to which Andrew Jackson shut his eyes. 
Opportunity once more knocked loudly at young 
Houston's door when the Creeks made their final 
stand at Horseshoe Bend. After the main body 
of the Indians had been destroyed, a party of war- 
riors barricaded themselves in a log cabin built 
over a ravine in such a situation that the guns 
could not be brought to bear. The place must 

184 



Under the Flag of the Lone Star 

be taken by storm, and Jackson called for volun- 
teers. Houston was the only man who responded. 
Snatching a rifle from a soldier, he shouted, "Come 
on, men! Follow me!" and dashed toward the 
cabin. But no one had the courage to follow him 
into the ravine of death. Running in zigzags, to 
disconcert the Indian marksmen, he actually 
reached the cabin before he fell with a shattered 
arm and two rifle-bullets through his shoulder. 
It was just the sort of deed to win the heart of 
the grim old hero of New Orleans, who until his 
death remained one of Houston's staunchest 
friends and admirers. 

Seeing but scant prospects of promotion in the 
piping times of peace which now ensued, Houston 
resigned from the army, took up the study of law, 
and was admitted to the bar within a year from 
the time he opened his first law book. He prac- 
tised for a few years with marked success, gave 
up the law for the more exciting field of politics, 
was elected to Congress when only thirty, and 
four years later became Governor of Tennes- 
see. As the result of an unhappy marriage, and 
deeply wounded by the outrageous and baseless 
accusations made by his political opponents, he 
resigned the governorship and went into volun- 
tary exile. In his trouble he turned his face to- 

i8S 



The Road to Glory 

ward the wigwam of his adopted father, Ooloo- 
teka, who had become the head chief of his tribe 
and had moved from the banks of the Tennessee 
to the falls of the Arkansas. Though eleven 
eventful years had passed, the old chiefs affec- 
tion for his white son had not diminished, and 
the exile found a warm welcome awaiting him in 
the wigwams and beside the council-fires of his 
adopted people. Learning of the frauds by which 
the Indian agents were enriching themselves at 
the expense of the nation's wards, Houston, who 
had adopted Indian dress, went to Washington 
and laid the facts before Secretary Calhoun, who, 
instead of thanking him, rebuked him for presum- 
ing to appear before him in the dress of an In- 
dian. Thereupon Houston turned his back on 
the secretary, and went straight to his old-time 
friend. President Jackson, who promptly saw to 
it that the guilty officials were punished. When 
the story of Calhoun's criticism of Houston's cos- 
tume was repeated to the President, that rough 
old soldier remarked dryly: ^'I'm glad there is 
one man of my acquaintance who was made by 
the Almighty and not by the tailor." 

After three years of forest life among the In- 
dians Houston decided to emigrate to Texas and 
become a ranchman, setting out with a few com- 

i86 



Under the Flag of the Lone Star 

panions in December, 1832, for San Antonio. 
The romantic story of Houston's self-imposed exile 
had resulted in making him a national figure, and 
the news that he had come to Texas spread among 
the settlers Hke fire in dry grass. Before reaching 
Nacogdoches he learned that he had been unani- 
mously elected a member of the convention which 
had been called to meet at Austin in the spring 
of 1833 to draft a constitution for Texas. From 
that time onward his story is that of his adopted 
country. When the rupture with Mexico came, 
in 1835, as a result of the attempt to disarm the 
settlers at Gonzales, Houston was chosen com- 
mander of the volunteer forces to be raised in 
eastern Texas, and after the battle at the Mission 
of the Immaculate Conception he was appointed 
commander-in-chief of the Texan army. 

When Santa Anna, flushed by his bloody suc- 
cesses at the Alamo and Goliad, started to invade 
central Texas, in the spring of 1836, Houston, who 
had been able to raise a force of barely five hun- 
dred untrained and ill-armed men, sullenly re- 
treated before the advance of the dictator. On 
the 1 8th of April, however, his plan of campaign 
was suddenly reversed by the capture of two 
Mexicans, from whom he learned what he had not 
positively known before: that Santa Anna him- 

187 



The Road to Glory 

self was with the advance column and that he 
was temporarily cut off from the other divisions 
of his army. The chance for which Houston was 
waiting had come, and he seized it before it could 
get away. If Texas was to be free, if the Lone 
Star flag and not the flag with the emblem of 
the serpent and the buzzard was to wave over the 
region above the Rio Grande, it was now or never. 
There were no half-way measures with Sam Hous- 
ton; he determined to stake everything upon a 
single throw. If he won, Texas would be free; if 
he lost he and his men could only go down fight- 
ing, as their fellows had gone before them. Push- 
ing on to a point near the mouth of the San Ja- 
cinto, where it empties into the Bay of Galveston, 
he carefully selected the spot for his last stand, 
mounted the two brass cannon known as "the 
Twin Sisters," which had been presented to the 
Texans by Northern sympathizers, and sat down 
to wait for the coming of "the Napoleon of the 
West." On the morning of the 20th of April his 
pickets fell back before the Mexican advance, 
and the two great antagonists, Houston and Santa 
Anna, at last found themselves face to face. The 
dictator had with him fifteen hundred men; 
Houston had less than half that number — but the 
Texans boasted that "two to one was always fair." 

188 



Under the Flag of the Lone Star 

At daybreak on the 2ist Houston sent for his 
chief of scouts, the famous Deaf Smith,* and or- 
dered him to choose a companion, take axes, and 
secretly destroy the bridge across the San Jacinto. 
As the bridge was the only means of retreat for 
miles around, this drastic step meant utter de- 
struction to the conquered. Talk about Cortes 
burning his boats behind him ! He showed not a 
whit more courage than did Houston when he 
destroyed the bridge across the San Jacinto. At 
3 o'clock in the afternoon he quietly paraded his 
little army behind the low range of hills which 
screened them from the enemy, who were still 
drowsing in their customary siesta. At this psy- 
chological moment Deaf Smith, following to the 
letter the instructions Houston had given him, 
tore up on a reeking horse, waving his axe above 
his head, and shouted: "Vince's Bridge is down! 
WeVe got to fight or drown!" That was the 
word for which Houston had been waiting. In- 
stantly he ordered his whole line to advance. 
The only music of the Texans was a fife and a 

* Erastus Smith, known as Deaf Smith because he was hard of 
hearing, first came to Texas in 1817 with one of the filibustering 
forces that were constantly arriving in that province. He was a 
man of remarkable gravity and few words, seldom answering except 
in monosyllables. His coolness in danger made his services as a spy 
invaluable to the Texans. 

189 



The Road to Glory 

drum, the musicians playing them into action to 
the roUicking tune of "Come to the Bower.'* 
And it was no bower of roses, either. As they 
swept into view, rifles at the trail and moving at 
the double, the Mexicans, though startled at the 
unexpectedness of the attack, met them with a 
raking fire of musketry. But the sight of the 
brown-faced men, and of the red-white-and-green 
banner which flaunted above them, infuriated the 
Texans to the point of frenzy. Losing all sem- 
blance of formation, they raced forward as fast 
as they could put foot to ground. 

In front of them rode the herculean Houston, 
a striking figure on his white horse. "Come on, 
boys!" he thundered. "Get at 'em! Get at 
'em! Texans, Texans, follow me!" And follow 
him they did, surging forward with the irresisti- 
bility of a tidal wave. "Remember the Alamo !" 
they roared. "Remember GoHad ! Remember 
Travis ! Remember Jim Bowie ! Remember 
Davy Crockett ! Kill the damned greasers ! Cut 
their hearts out! Kill 'em! Kill 'em! Kill 
em ! 

In the face of the maddened onslaught the 
Mexican line crumbled like a hillside before the 
stream from a hydraulic nozzle. Before the de- 
morahzed Mexicans had time to realize what 

190 



Under the Flag of the Lone Star 

had happened the Texans were in their midst. 
Many of them were "two-gun men,'* who fought 
with a revolver in each hand — and at every shot 
a Mexican fell. Others avenged the murdered 
Bowie with the wicked knife which bore his name, 
slashing and ripping and stabbing with the long, 
savage blades until they looked like poleaxe men 
in an abattoir. In vain the terrified Mexicans 
threw down their arms and fell upon their knees, 
pattering out prayers in Spanish and calling in 
their broken EngHsh: "Me no Alamo! Me no 
Goliad!" Within five minutes after the Texans 
had come to hand-grips with their foe the battle 
had turned into a slaughter. Houston was shot 
through the ankle and his horse was dying, but 
man and horse struggled on. Deaf Smith drove 
his horse into the thick of the fight and, as it fell 
dead beneath him, he turned his long-barrelled 
rifle into a war-club and literally smashed his 
way through the Mexican line, leaving a trail of 
men with broken skulls behind him. An old 
frontiersman named Curtis went into action car- 
rying two guns. "The greasers killed my son 
and my son-in-law at the Alamo,'' he shouted, 
"and Vm going to get two of 'em before I die, 
and if I get old Santa Anna I'll cut a razor-strop 
from his back." 

191 



The Road to Glory 

The commander of one of the Mexican regi- 
ments attempted to stem the tide of defeat by 
charging the Texan Hne at its weakest point with 
five hundred men. Houston, instantly appreci- 
ating the peril, dashed in front of his men. " Come 
on, my brave fellows !" he shouted, "your general 
leads you!" They met the charging Mexicans 
half-way, stopped them with a withering volley, 
and then finished the business with the knife. 
Only thirty-two of the five hundred Mexicans 
were left alive to surrender. Everywhere sounded 
the grunt of blows sent home, the scream of 
wounded men, the choking sobs of the dying, the 
crack-crack-crack of rifle and revolver, the grating 
rasp of steel on steel, the harsh, shrill orders of 
the officers, the trample of many feet, and, above 
all, the deep-throated, menacing cry of the aveng- 
ing Texans : " Remember the Alamo ! Remember 
Goliad ! Kill the greasers ! Kill 'em ! Kill 'em I 
Kill'em!" 

In fifteen minutes the battle of the San Jacinto 
was over, and all that was left of Santa Anna's 
army of invasion was a panic-stricken mob of 
fugitives flying blindly across the prairie. Hard 
on their heels galloped the Texan cavalry, cutting 
down the stragglers with their sabres and herd- 
ing the bulk of the flying army toward the river 

192 



Under the Flag of the Lone Star 

as cow-punchers herd cattle into a corral. And 
the bridge was gone ! Before the Mexicans rolled 
the deep and turbid San Jacinto; coming up be- 
hind them were the blood-crazed Texans. It was 
death on either hand. Some of them spurred 
their horses into the river, only to be picked ofF 
with rifle-bullets as they tried to swim across. 
Others threw down their weapons and waited 
stolidly for the fatal stroke or shot. It was a 
bloody business. Modern history records few, if 
any, more sweeping victories. Of Santa Anna's 
army of something over fifteen hundred men six 
hundred and thirty were killed, two hundred and 
eight wounded, and seven hundred and thirty 
taken prisoners. 

The finishing touch was put to Houston's tri- 
umph on the following morning when a scouting 
party, scouring the prairie in search of fugitives, 
discovered a man in the uniform of a common 
soldier attempting to escape on hands and knees 
through the high grass. He was captured and 
marched nine miles to the Texan camp, plodding 
on foot in the dust in front of his mounted cap- 
tors. When he lagged one of them would prick 
him with his lance point until he broke into a 
run. As the Texans rode into camp with their 
panting and exhausted captive, the Mexican pris- 

193 



The Road to Glory 

oners excitedly exclaimed: *^ El Presidente! El 
Presidente !'' It was Santa Anna, dictator of 
Mexico — a prisoner in the hands of the men whom 
he had boasted that he would make fugitives, 
prisoners, or corpses. Lying under the tree where 
he had spent the night, the wounded Houston re- 
ceived the surrender of **the Napoleon of the 
West." The war of independence was over. 
Texas was a republic in fact as well as in name, 
and the hero of the San Jacinto became its presi- 
dent. The defenders of the Alamo and Goliad 
were avenged. From the Sabine to the Rio 
Grande the lone-star flag flew free. 



194 



THE PREACHER WHO RODE FOR AN 

EMPIRE 



THE PREACHER WHO RODE FOR AN 

EMPIRE 

THIS is the forgotten story of the greatest 
ride. The history of the nation has been 
punctuated with other great rides, it is true. 
Paul Revere rode thirty miles to rouse the Mid- 
dlesex minutemen and save from capture the guns 
and powder stored at Concord; Sheridan rode 
the twenty miles from Winchester to Cedar Creek 
and by his thunderous "Turn, boys, turn — we're 
going back!" saved the battle — and the names of 
them both are immortalized in verse that is more 
enduring than iron. Whitman, the missionary, 
rode four thousand miles and saved us an em- 
pire, and his name is not known at all. 

Though there were other actors in the great 
drama which culminated in the grim old preach- 
er's memorable ride — suave, frock-coated diplo- 
mats and furtive secret agents and sun-bronzed, 
leather-shirted frontiersmen and bearded factors 
of the fur trade — the story rightfully begins and 
ends with Indians. There were four of them, all 
chieftains, and the beaded patterns on their gar- 

197 



The Road to Glory 

ments of fringed buckskin and the fashion in 
which they wore the feathers in their hair told 
the plainsmen as plainly as though they had 
been labelled that they were listened to with re- 
spect in the councils of the Flathead tribe, whose 
tepees were pitched in the far nor Vest. They 
rode their lean and wiry ponies up the dusty, 
unpaved thoroughfare in St. Louis known as 
Broadway one afternoon in the late autumn of 
1832. Though the St. Louis of three quarters of 
a century ago was but an outpost on civilization's 
firing-Hne and its six thousand inhabitants were 
accustomed to seeing the strange, wild figures of 
the plains, the sudden appearance of these In- 
dian braves, who came riding out of nowhere, 
clad in all the barbaric panoply of their rank, 
caused a distinct flutter of curiosity. 

The news of their arrival being reported to 
General Clarke, the military commandant, he 
promptly assumed the ciceronage of the bewil- 
dered but impassive red men. Having, as it 
chanced, been an Indian commissioner in his ear- 
lier years, he knew the tribe well and could speak 
with them in their own guttural tongue. Beyond 
vouchsafing the information that they came from 
the upper reaches of the Columbia, from the 
country known as Oregon, and that they had 

198 



The Preacher Who Rode 

spent the entire summer and fall upon their jour- 
ney, the Indians, with characteristic reticence, 
gave no explanation of the purpose of their visit. 
After some days had passed, however, they con- 
fided to General Clarke that rumors had filtered 
through to their tribe of the white man's "Book 
of Life," and that they had been sent to seek it. 
To a seasoned old frontiersman like the general, 
this was a novel proposition to come from a 
tribe of remote and untamed Indians. He treated 
the tribal commissioners, nevertheless, with the ut- 
most hospitality, taking them to dances and such 
other entertainments as the limited resources of 
the St. Louis of those days permitted, and, being 
himself a devout Catholic, to his own church. 
Thus passed the winter, during which two of the 
chiefs died, as a result, no doubt, of the indoor 
life and the unaccustomed richness of the food. 
When the tawny prairies became polka-dotted 
with bunch-grass in the spring, the two survi- 
vors made preparations for their departure, but, 
before they left. General Clarke, who had taken 
a great liking to these dignified and intelligent 
red men, insisted on giving them a farewell ban- 
quet. After the dinner the elder of the chiefs 
was called upon for a speech. You must picture 
him as standing with folded arms, tall, straight 

199 



The Road to Glory 

and of commanding presence, at the head of the 
long table, a most dramatic and impressive fig- 
ure in his garments of quill-embroidered buck- 
skin, with an eagle feather slanting in his hair. 
He spoke with the guttural but sonorous elo- 
quence of his people, and after each period Gen- 
eral Clarke translated what he had said to the 
attentive audience of army officers, government 
officials, priests, merchants, and traders who lined 
the table. 

"I have come to you, my brothers," he began, 
"over the trail of many moons from out of the 
setting sun. You were the friends of my fathers, 
who have all gone the long way. I have come 
with an eye partly open for my people, who sit 
in darkness. I go back with both eyes closed. 
How can I go back blind, to my blind people ? 
I made my way to you with strong arms through 
many enemies and strange lands that I might 
carry much back to them. I go back with both 
arms broken and empty. Two fathers came with 
us; they were the braves of many winters and 
wars. We leave them asleep here by your great 
water and wigwams. They were tired in many 
moons, and their moccasins wore out. 

"My people sent me to get the white man's 
Book of Life. You took me to where you allow 

200 



The Preacher Who Rode 

your women to dance as we do not ours, and the 
Book was not there. You took me to where they 
worship the Great Spirit with candles, and the 
Book was not there. You showed me images of 
the good spirits and pictures of the good land 
beyond, but the Book was not among them to 
tell us the way. I am going back the long and 
sad trail to my people in the dark land. You 
make my feet heavy with gifts, and my mocca- 
sins will grow old in carrying them; yet the Book 
is not among them. When I tell my poor, blind 
people, after one more snow, in the big council 
that I did not bring the Book, no word will be 
spoken by our old men or by our young braves. 
One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. 
My people will die in darkness, and they will go 
on a long path to other hunting-grounds. No 
white man will go with them and no white man's 
Book to make the way plain. I have no more 
words." 

Just as the rude eloquence of the appeal touched 
the hearts of the frontier dwellers who sat about 
the table in St. Louis, so, when it was translated 
and published in the Eastern papers, it touched 
the hearts and fired the imaginations of the na- 
tion. In a ringing editorial The Christian Advo- 
cate asked: **Who will respond to go beyond the 

20I 



The Road to Glory 

Rocky Mountains and carry the Book of Heaven ?'' 
And this was the cue for the missionary whose 
name was Marcus Whitman to set foot upon the 
boards of history. 

His preparation for a frontiersman's Hfe began 
early for young Whitman. Born in Connecticut 
when the eighteenth century had all but run its 
course, he was still in his swaddling-clothes when 
his parents, falling victims to the prevalent fever 
for *' going west," piled their lares and penates 
into an ox-cart and trekked overland to the fertile 
lake region of central New York, Mrs. Whitman 
making the four-hundred-mile journey on foot, 
with her year-old babe in her arms. Building a 
cabin with the tree trunks cleared from the site, 
they began the usual pioneer's struggle for exis- 
tence. His father dying before he had reached 
his teens, young Marcus was sent to live with 
his grandfather in Plainfield, Mass., where he re- 
mained ten years, learning his ** three R's" in 
such schools as the place afforded, his education 
later being taken in hand by the local parson. 
His youth was passed in the usual life of the 
country boy; to drive home the cows and milk 
them, to chop the wood and carry the water and 
do the other household chores, and, later on, to 
plough and plant the fields — a training which was 

202 



The Preacher Who Rode 

to prove invaluable to him in after years, on the 
shores of another ocean. I expect that the strong, 
sturdy boy of ceaseless activity and indomitable 
will — the Plainfield folk called him mischievous 
and stubborn — who was fonder of hunting and 
fishing than of algebra and Greek, must have 
caused his old grandfather a good deal of worry; 
though, from all I can learn, he seems to have 
been a straightforward and likable youngster. 
Very early he set his heart on entering the min- 
istry; but, owing to the dissuasions of his rela- 
tives and friends, who knew how pitifully meagre 
was a clergyman's living in those days, he reluc- 
tantly abandoned the idea and took up instead 
the study of medicine. After practising in Can- 
ada for several years, he returned to central New 
York, where, with but Httle help, he chopped a 
farm out of the wilderness, cleared it, and culti- 
vated it, built a grist-mill and a sawmill, and at 
the same time acted as physician for a district 
fifty miles in radius. He was in the heyday of 
life, prosperous, and engaged to the prettiest girl 
in all the countryside, when, reading in the local 
paper the appeal made by the Indian chieftains 
in far-away St. Louis, the old crusading fervor 
that had first turned his thoughts toward the 
ministry, flamed up clear and strong within him, 

203 



The Road to Glory 

and, putting comfort, prosperity, everything be- 
hind him, he appHed to the American Board for 
appointment as a missionary to Oregon. Such 
a request from a man so pecuHarly quahfied for 
a wilderness career as Whitman could not well 
be disregarded, and in due time he received an 
appointment to go to the banks of the Columbia, 
investigate, return, and report. The wish of his 
life had been granted: he had become a skirmisher 
in the army of the church. 

Accompanied by a fellow missionarj^. Whitman 
penetrated into the Western wilderness as far as 
the Wind River Mountains, near the present Yel- 
lowstone Park. After familiarizing themselves 
through talks with traders, trappers, and Indians 
with the conditions which prevailed in the valley 
of the Columbia, Whitman and his companion 
returned to Boston, and upon the strength of 
their report the American Board decided to lose 
no time in occupying the field. Ordered to es- 
tablish a station on the Columbia, in the vicinity 
of Fort Walla Walla, then a post of the Hudson's 
Bay Company, Whitman turned the long and 
arduous trip across the continent into a wedding 
journey. The conveyances used and the round- 
about route taken by the bridal couple strikingly 
emphasize the primitive internal communica- 

204 



The Preacher Who Rode 

tions of the period. They drove in a sleigh from 
Elmira, N. Y., to HolKdaysburg, a hamlet on the 
Pennsylvania Canal, at the foot of the Allegha- 
nies, the canal-boats, which were built in sections, 
being taken over the mountains on a railway. 
Travelling by the canal and its communicating 
waterways to the Ohio, they journeyed by steam- 
boat down the Ohio to its junction with the Mis- 
sissippi, up the Mississippi to St. Louis, and 
thence up the Missouri to Council Bluffs, where 
they bought a wagon (bear that wagon in mind, 
if you please, for you shall hear of it later on), 
and outfitted for the journey across the plains. 
Accompanied by another missionary couple. Doc- 
tor and Mrs. Spalding, they turned the noses of 
their mules northwestward and a week or so later 
caught up with an expedition sent out by the 
American Fur Company to its settlement of As- 
toria, at the mouth of the Columbia. Following 
the North Fork of the Platte, they crossed the 
Wind River Mountains within sight of the land- 
mark which came in time to be known as Fre- 
mont's Peak, though these two young women 
crossed the Great Divide six years before Fremont, 
"the pathfinder," ever set eyes upon it. Few 
women of our race have ever made so perilous 
or difficult a journey. Before it was half com- 

205 



The Road to Glory 

pleted, the party, owing to a miscalculation, ran 
out of flour and for weeks on end were forced 
to live on jerked bufFalo meat and tea. Crossing 
the Snake River at a point where it was upward 
of a mile in width, the wagon was capsized by 
the velocity of the current, and, the mules, on 
which the women had been put for safety, be- 
coming entangled in the harness, their riders 
escaped drowning by what the missionaries de- 
voutly ascribed to a miracle and the rough- 
spoken frontiersmen to *' damned good luck." 
Another river they crossed by means of a dried 
elkskin with two ropes attached, on which they 
lay flat and perfectly motionless while two In- 
dian women, holding the ropes in their teeth, 
swam the stream, drawing this unstable ferry 
behind them. 

At Fort Hall, near the present site of Poca- 
tello, Ida., they came upon the southernmost of 
that chain of trading-posts with which the Hud- 
son's Bay Company sought to guard the enormous 
territory which, without so much as a "by-your- 
leave," it had taken for its own. Here Captain 
Grant, the company's factor, made a determined 
eff'ort to induce Whitman to abandon the wagon 
that he had brought with him across the conti- 
nent in the face of almost insuperable obstacles. 

206 



The Preacher Who Rode 

But the obstinacy that had caused the folks in 
Plainfield to shake their heads when the name 
of young Marcus Whitman was mentioned stood 
him in good stead, for the more persistent the 
EngHshman became in his objections the more 
adamantine grew the American in his determi- 
nation to cHng at all costs to his wagon, for no 
one knew better than Whitman that this had 
proved the most successful of the methods pur- 
sued by the great British fur monopoly to dis- 
courage the colonization of the territory wherein 
it conducted its operations. The officials of the 
Hudson's Bay Company well knew that the colo- 
nization of the valley of the Columbia by Ameri- 
cans meant not only the end of their enormously 
profitable monopoly but the end of British domi- 
nation in that region. Though they did not have 
it in their power to forcibly prevent Americans 
from entering the country, they argued that there 
could be no colonization on a large scale unless 
the settlers had wagons in which to transport their 
seeds and farming implements. Hence the com- 
pany adopted the poHcy of stationing its agents 
along the main routes of travel with instructions 
to stop at nothing short of force to detain the 
wagons. And until Marcus Whitman came this 
policy had accomplished the desired result, the 

207 



The Road to Glory 

specious arguments of Captain Grant having 
proved so successful, indeed, that the stockade at 
Fort Hall was filled with abandoned wagons and 
farming implements which would have been of 
inestimable value to the settlers who had been 
persuaded or bullied into leaving them behind. 
But Whitman was made of different stuff, and 
the English official might as well have tried to 
argue the Snake River out of its course as to 
argue this hard-headed Yankee into giving up his 
wagon. Though it twice capsized and was all 
but lost in the swollen streams, though once it 
fell over a precipice and more than once went 
rolHng down a mountainside, though for miles on 
end it was held on the narrow, winding mountain 
trails by means of drag-ropes, and though it be- 
came so dilapidated in time that it finished its 
journey on two wheels instead of four, the ram- 
shackle old vehicle, thanks to Whitman's bull- 
dog grit and determination, was hauled over the 
mountains and was the first vehicle to enter the 
forbidden land. I have laid stress upon this inci- 
dent of the wagon, because, as things turned out, 
it proved a vital factor in the winning of Oregon. 
**For want of a nail the shoe was lost," runs the 
ancient doggerel; "for want of a shoe the horse 
was lost; for want of a horse the rider was lost; 

208 



The Preacher Who Rode 

for want of a rider the kingdom was lost." And, 
had it not been for this decrepit old wagon of 
Whitman's, a quarter of a million square miles of 
the most fertile land between the oceans would 
have been lost to the Union. 

Seven months after helping his bride into the 
sleigh at Elmira, Whitman drove his gaunt mule- 
team into the gate of the stockade at Fort Walla 
Walla. To-day one can make that same journey 
in a little more than four days and sit in a green 
plush chair all the way. The news of Whitman's 
coming had preceded him, and an enormous con- 
course of Indians, arrayed in all their barbaric 
finery, was assembled to greet the man who had 
journeyed so many moons to bring them the 
white man's Book of Heaven. Picture that quar- 
tet of missionaries — skirmishers of the church, 
pickets of progress, advance-guards of civilization 
— as they stood on the banks of the Columbia 
one September morning in 1836 and consulted as 
to how to begin the work they had been sent to 
do. It was all new. There were no precedents 
to guide them. How would you begin, my friends, 
were you suddenly set down in the middle of a 
wilderness four thousand miles from home, with 
instructions to Christianize and civilize the sav- 
ages who inhabited it .? 

209 



The Road to Glory 

Whitman, In whom diplomacy lost an adept 
when he became a missionary, appreciated that 
the first thing for him to do, if he was to be suc- 
cessful in his mission, was to win the confidence 
of the ruling powers of Oregon — the Hudson's Bay 
Company officials at Fort Vancouver. This ne- 
cessitated another journey of three hundred miles, 
but it could be made in canoes with Indian pad- 
dlers. Doctor McLoughlin, the stern old Scotch- 
man who was chief factor of the Hudson's Bay 
Company and whose word was law throughout 
a region larger than all the States east of the 
Mississippi put together, had to be able, from 
the very nature of his business, to read the char- 
acters of men as students read a book; and he 
was evidently pleased with what he read in the 
face of the American missionary, for he gave both 
permission and assistance in establishing a mis- 
sion station at Waiilatpui, twenty-five miles from 
Walla Walla. 

Whitman's first move in his campaign for the 
civilization of the Indians was to induce them 
to build permanent homes and to plough and sow. 
This the Hudson's Bay officials had always dis- 
couraged. They did not want their savage allies 
to be transformed into tillers of the soil; they 
wanted them to remain nomads and hunters, 

2IO 



The Preacher Who Rode 

ready to move hundreds of miles in quest of 
furs. The only parallel in modern times to the 
greed, selfishness, and cruelty which characterized 
the administration of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany was the rule of the Portuguese in Mozam- 
bique and Angola and of King Leopold in the 
Congo. 

At this time Oregon was a sort of no man's 
land, to which neither England nor the United 
States had laid definite claim, though the former, 
realizing the immensity of its natural resources 
and the enormous strategic value that would ac- 
crue from its possession, had long cast covetous 
eyes upon it. The Americans of that period, on 
the contrary, knew little about Oregon and cared 
less, regarding the proposals for its acquisition 
with the same distrust with which the Americans 
of to-day regard any suggestion for extending 
our boundaries below the Rio Grande. Daniel 
Webster had said on the floor of the United 
States Senate: "What do we want with this 
vast, worthless area, this region of savages and 
wild beasts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds of 
dust, of cactus and prairie-dogs ? To what use 
could we ever hope to put these great deserts or 
these endless mountain ranges, impenetrable and 
covered to their base with eternal snow ? What 

211 



The Road to Glory 

can we ever hope to do with the western coast, a 
coast of three thousand miles, rock-bound, cheer- 
less, and uninviting, and not a harbor on it ? Mr. 
President, I will never vote one cent from the 
public treasury to place the Pacific coast one inch 
nearer to Boston." 

The name Oregon, it must be borne in mind, 
had a very much broader significance then than 
now, for the territory generally considered to be 
referred to by the term comprised the whole of 
the present States of Oregon, Washington, and 
Idaho, and a portion of Montana. 

Notwithstanding the systematic efforts of the 
Hudson's Bay Company to keep them out, a con- 
siderable number of Americans — perhaps two or 
three hundred in all — had settled in the country 
watered by the Columbia, but they were greatly 
outnumbered by the Canadians and British, who 
held the balance of power. The American set- 
tlers believed that, under the terms of the treaty 
of 1 8 19, whichever nation settled and organized 
the territory that nation would hold it. Though 
this was not directly affirmed in the terms of 
that treaty, it was the common sentiment of the 
statesmen of the period, Webster, then Secretary 
of State, having said, in the course of a letter to 
the British minister at Washington: "The owner- 

212 



The Preacher Who Rode 

ship of the whole country (Oregon) will likely 
follow the greater settlement and larger amount 
of population." The missionaries, recognizing the 
incalculable value of the country which the Amer- 
ican Government was deliberately throwing away, 
did everything in their power to encourage immi- 
gration. Their glowing accounts of the fertility 
of the soil, the balmy climate, the wealth of tim- 
ber, the incalculable water-power, the wealth in 
minerals had each year induced a limited num- 
ber of daring souls to make the perilous and costly 
journey across the plains. In the autumn of 1842 
a much larger party than any that had hitherto 
attempted the journey — one hundred and twenty 
in all — reached Waiilatpui. Among them was a 
highly educated and unusually well-informed 
man — General Amos Lovejoy. He was thor- 
oughly posted in national affairs, and it was in 
the course of a conversation with him that Doc- 
tor Whitman first learned that the Webster-Ash- 
burton treaty would probably be ratified before 
the adjournment of Congress in the following 
March. It was generally beHeved that this treaty 
related to the entire boundary between the United 
States and England's North American possessions, 
the popular supposition being that it provided for 
the cession of the Oregon region to Great Britain 

213 



The Road to Glory 

in return for fishing rights ofF the coast of New- 
foundland. 

Doctor Whitman instantly saw that, as a re- 
sult of the incredible ignorance and short-sighted- 
ness of the statesmen — or rather, the politicians 
who paraded as statesmen — at Washington, four 
great States were quietly slipping away from us 
without a protest. There was but one thing to 
do in such a crisis. He must set out for Wash- 
ington. Though four thousand miles of Indian- 
haunted wilderness lay between him and the white 
city on the Potomac, he did not hesitate. Though 
winter was at hand, and the passes would be deep 
in snow and the plains destitute of pasturage, he 
did not falter. Though there was a rule of the 
American Board that no missionary could leave 
his post without obtaining permission from head- 
quarters in Boston, Whitman shouldered all the 
responsibility. "I did not expatriate myself when 
I became a missionary,'' was his reply to some 
objection. "Even if the Board dismisses me, I 
will do what I can to save Oregon to the nation. 
My life is of but little worth if I can keep this 
country for the American people." * 

* It is a regrettable fact that this, one of the finest episodes in our 
national history, from being a subject of honest controversy has 
degenerated into an embittered and rancorous quarrel, some of Doctor 
Whitman's detractors, not content with questioning the motives 

214 



The Preacher Who Rode 

Whitman's friends in Oregon felt that he was 
starting on a ride into the valley of the shadow 
of death. They knew from their own experiences 
the terrible hardships of such a journey even in 
summer, when there was grass to feed the horses 
and men could live with comfort in the open air. 
It was resolved that he must not make the jour- 
ney alone, and a call was made for a volunteer to 
accompany him. General Amos Lovejoy stepped 
forward and said quietly: "I will go with Doctor 
Whitman." The doctor planned to start in five 
days, but, while dining with the Hudson's Bay of- 
ficials at Fort Walla Walla, an express messenger 
of the company arrived from Fort Colville, three 
hundred and fifty miles up the Columbia, and 
electrified his audience by announcing that a party 
of one hundred and forty British and Canadian 
colonists were on the road to Oregon. A young 
English clergyman, carried away with enthusiasm, 
sprang to his feet, waved his napkin above his 
head and shouted: "We've got the country — the 

which animated him in his historic ride, having gone so far as to 
cast doubts on the fact of the ride itself and even to assail the char- 
acter of the great missionary. Full substantiation of the episode as 
I have told it may be found, however, in Barrows's "Oregon, the 
Struggle for Possession," Johnson's "History of Oregon," Dye's 
"McLoughlin and Old Oregon," and Nixon's "How Marcus Whit- 
man Saved Oregon," an array of authorities which seem to me 
sufficient. 

215 



The Road to Glory 

Yankees are too late! Hurrah for Oregon!" 
Whitman, appreciating that things had now 
reached a pass where even hours were precious, 
quietly excused himself, hurried back to the mis- 
sion at Waiilatpui, and made preparations for an 
immediate departure. The strictest secrecy was 
enjoined upon all the Americans whom Whitman 
had taken into his confidence, for had a rumor of 
his intentions reached British ears at this junc- 
ture it might have ruined everything. So it was 
given out that he was returning to Boston to ad- 
vise the American Board against the contem- 
plated removal of its missions in Oregon — an ex- 
planation which was true as far as it went. 

On the morning of October 3, 1842, Whitman, 
saying good-by to his wife and home, climbed 
into his saddle and with General Lovejoy, their 
half-breed guide, and three pack-mules set out 
on the ride that was to win us an empire. The 
little group of American missionaries and settlers 
whom he left behind gave him a rousing cheer as 
he rode off and then stood in silence with choking 
throats and misted eyes until the heroic doctor 
and his companions were swallowed by the forest. 

With horses fresh, they reached Fort Hall in 
eleven days, where the English factor, Captain 
Grant — the same man who, six years before, had 

216 



The Preacher Who Rode 

attempted to prevent Whitman from taking his 
wagon into Oregon — doubtless guessing at their 
mission, did his best to detain them. Learning 
at Fort Hall that the northern tribes were on the 
war-path, Whitman and his companions struck 
southward in the direction of Great Salt Lake, 
planning to work from there eastward, via Fort 
Uintah and Fort Uncompahgre, to Santa Fe, and 
thence by the Santa Fe trail to St. Louis, which 
was on the borders of civilization. The journey 
from Fort Hall to Fort Uintah was one long 
nightmare, the temperature falling at times to 
forty degrees below zero and the snow being so 
deep in places that the horses could scarcely 
struggle through. While crossing the mountains 
on their way to Taos they were caught in a 
blinding snow-storm, in which, with badly frozen 
limbs, they wandered aimlessly for hours. Fi- 
nally, upon the guide admitting that he was lost 
and could go no farther, they sought refuge in a 
deep ravine. Whitman dismounted and, kneel- 
ing in the snow, prayed for guidance. Can't you 
picture the scene: the lonely, rock-walled gorge; 
the shivering animals standing dejectedly, heads 
to the ground and reins trailing; the general, 
muffled to the eyes in furs; the impassive, blank- 
eted half-breed; in the centre, upon his knees, the 

217 



The Road to Glory 

indomitable missionary, praying to the God of 
storms; and the snowflakes falHng swiftly, silently, 
upon everything ? As though in answer to the 
doctor's prayers — and who shall say that it was 
not — the lead-mule, which had been left to him- 
self, suddenly started plunging through the snow- 
drifts as though on an urgent errand. Where- 
upon the guide called out: "This old mule'll find 
the way back to camp if he kin live long 'nough 
to git there." And he did. 

The next morning the guide said flatly that he 
would go no farther. 

"I know this country," he declared, "an* I 
know when things is possible an* when they ain't. 
It ain't possible to git through, an' it's plumb 
throwin' your lives away to try it. I'm finished.'* 

This was a solar-plexus blow for Whitman, for 
he was already ten days behind his schedule. 
But, though staggered, he was far from being 
beaten. Telling Lovejoy to remain in camp and 
recuperate the animals — which he did by feeding 
them on brush and the inner bark of willows, 
for there was no other fodder — Whitman turned 
back to Fort Uncompahgre, where he succeeded 
in obtaining a stouter-hearted guide. In a week 
he had rejoined Lovejoy. The storm had ceased, 
and with rested animals they made good progress 

218 



The Preacher Who Rode 

over the mountains to the pyramid pueblo of 
Taos, the home of Kit Carson. Tarrying there 
but a few hours, worn and weary though they 
were, they pressed on to the banks of the Red 
River, a stream which is dangerous even in sum- 
mer, only to find a fringe of solid ice upon each 
shore, with a rushing torrent, two hundred feet 
wide, between. For some minutes the guide 
studied it in silence. "It is too dangerous to 
cross," he said at last decisively. 

"Dangerous or not, we must cross it, and at 
once," answered Whitman. Cutting a stout wil- 
low pole, eight feet or so in length, he put it on 
his shoulder and remounted. 

"Now, boys," he ordered, "shove me off." 
Following the doctor's directions, Lovejoy and 
the guide urged the trembling beast onto the 
slippery ice and then gave him a sudden shove 
which sent him, much against his will, into the 
freezing water. Both horse and rider remained 
for a moment out of sight, then rose to the sur- 
face well toward the middle of the stream, the 
horse swimming desperately. As they reached 
the opposite bank the doctor's ingenuity In pro- 
viding himself with the pole quickly became ap- 
parent, for with It he broke the fringe of ice and 
thus enabled his exhausted horse to gain a foot- 

219 



The Road to Glory 

ing and scramble ashore. Wood was plentiful, 
and he soon had a roaring fire. In a wild coun- 
try, when the lead-animal has gone ahead the 
others will always follow, so the general and the 
guide had no great difficulty in inducing their 
horses and pack-mules to make the passage of the 
river, rejoining Whitman upon the opposite bank. 
Despite the fact that they found plenty of 
wood along the route that they had taken, which 
was fully a thousand miles longer than the north- 
ern course would have been, all the party were 
severely frozen. Whitman suffering excruciating 
pain from his frozen ears, hands, and feet. The 
many delays had not only caused the loss of 
precious time, but they had completely exhausted 
their provisions. A dog had accompanied the 
party, and they ate him. A mule came next, and 
that kept them until they reached Santa Fe, 
where there was plenty. Santa Fe — that oldest 
city of European occupation on the continent — 
welcomed and fed them. From there over the 
famous Santa Fe trail to Bent's Fort, a fortified 
settlement on the Arkansas, was a long journey 
but, compared with what they had already gone 
through, an easy one. A long day's ride north- 
eastward from this lonely outpost of American 
civilization, and they found across their path a 

220 



The Preacher Who Rode 

tributary of the Arkansas. On the opposite shore 
was wood in plenty. On their side there was 
none, and the river was frozen over with smooth, 
clear ice, scarce strong enough to hold a man. 
They must have wood or they would perish from 
the cold; so Whitman, taking the axe, lay flat 
upon the ice and snaked himself across, cut a 
sufficient supply of fuel and returned the way he 
went, pushing it before him. While he was cut- 
ting it, however, an unfortunate incident occurred: 
the axe-helve was splintered. This made no par- 
ticular difference at the moment, for the doc- 
tor wound the break in the handle with a thong 
of buckskin. But as they were in camp that 
night a famished wolf, attracted by the smell of 
the fresh buckskin, carried off axe and all, and 
they could find no trace of it. Had it happened 
a few hundred miles back it would have meant 
the failure of the expedition, if not the death of 
Whitman and his companions. On such appar- 
ently insignificant trifles do the fate of nations 
sometimes hang. 

Crossing the plains of what are now the States 
of Oklahoma and Kansas, great packs of gaunt, 
gray timber-wolves surrounded their tent each 
night and were kept at bay only at the price of 
unceasing vigilance, one member of the party al- 

221 



The Road to Glory 

ways remaining on guard with a loaded rifle. 
The moment a wolf was shot its famished com- 
panions would pounce upon it and tear it to 
pieces. From Bent's Fort to St. Louis was, 
strangely enough, one of the most dangerous por- 
tions of the journey, for, while heretofore the chief 
dangers had come from cold, starvation, and sav- 
age beasts, here they were in hourly danger from 
still more savage men, for in those days the Santa 
Fe trail was frequented by bandits, horse-thieves, 
renegade Indians, fugitives from justice, and the 
other desperate characters who haunted the out- 
skirts of civilization and preyed upon the unpro- 
tected traveller. Notwithstanding these dangers, 
of which he had been repeatedly warned at Santa 
Fe and Bent's Fort, the doctor, leaving Lovejoy 
and the guide to follow him with the pack-animals, 
pushed on through this perilous region alone, but 
lost his way and spent two precious days in find- 
ing it again — a punishment, he said for having 
travelled on the Sabbath. 

The only occasion throughout all his astound- 
ing journey when this man of iron threatened to 
collapse was when, upon reaching St. Louis, in 
February, 1843, he learned, in answer to his eager 
inquiries, that the Ashburton treaty had been 
signed on August 9, long before he left Oregon, 

222 



The Preacher Who Rode 

and that it had been ratified by the Senate on 
November lo, while he was floundering in the 
mountain snows near Fort Uncompahgre. For a 
moment the missionary's mahogany-tanned face 
went white and his legs threatened to give way 
beneath him. Could it be that this was the end 
of his dream of national expansion ? Was it pos- 
sible that his heroic ride had been made for 
naught ? But summoning up his courage he man- 
aged to ask: "Is the question of the Oregon 
boundary still open ?" When he learned that the 
treaty had only settled the question of a few 
square miles in Maine, and that the matter of 
the northwest boundary was still pending, the 
revulsion was so great that he reeled and nearly 
fell. God be praised ! There was still time for 
him to get to Washington ! The river was frozen 
and he had to depend upon the stage, and an 
overland journey from St. Louis to Washington 
in midwinter was no light matter. But to Whit- 
man with muscles like steel springs, a thousand 
miles by stage-coach over atrocious roads was not 
an obstacle worthy of discussion. 

He arrived at Washington on the 3d of March — 
just five months from the Columbia to the Po- 
tomac — in the same rough garments he had worn 
upon his ride, for he had neither time nor oppor- 

223 



The Road to Glory 

tunity to get others. Soiled and greasy buck- 
skin breeches, sheepskin chaparejos^ fleece side 
out, boot-moccasins of elkskin, a cap of raccoon 
fur with the tail hanging down behind, frontier 
fashion, and a buffalo greatcoat with a hood for 
stormy weather, composed a costume that did not 
show one inch of woven fabric. His face, storm- 
tanned to the color of a much-smoked meerschaum, 
carried all the iron-gray whiskers that five months' 
absence from a razor could put upon it. I doubt, 
indeed, if the shop-windows of the national capi- 
tal have ever reflected a more picturesque or strik- 
ing figure. But he had no time to take note of 
the sensation created in the streets of Washing- 
ton by his appearance. Would he be granted 
an audience with the President.? Would he be 
believed? Would his mission prove success- 
ful ? Those were the questions that tormented 
him. 

Those were days when the chief executive of 
the nation was hedged by less formality than he 
is in these busier times, and President Tyler 
promptly received him. Some day, perhaps, the 
people of one of those great States which he 
saved to the Union will commission a famous ar- 
tist to paint a picture of that historic meeting: 
the President, his keen, attentive face framed by 

224 



The Preacher Who Rode 

the flaring collar and high black stock of the 
period, sitting low in his great armchair; the 
great Secretary of State, his mane brushed back 
from his tremendous forehead, seated beside him; 
and, standing before them, the preacher-pioneer, 
bearded to the eyes, with frozen limbs, in his 
worn and torn garments of fur and leather, plead- 
ing for Oregon. The burden of his argument was 
that the treaty of 1819 must be immediately 
abrogated and that the authority of the United 
States be extended over the valley of the Co- 
lumbia. He painted in glowing words the limit- 
less resources, the enormous wealth in minerals 
and timber and water-power of this land beyond 
the Rockies; he told his hearers, spellbound now 
by the interest and vividness of the narrative, of 
the incredible fertility of the virgin soil, in which 
anything would grow; of the vastness of the 
forests; of the countless leagues of navigable 
rivers; of the healthful and delightful climate; 
of the splendid harbors along the coast; and last, 
but by no means least, of those hardy pioneers 
who had gone forth to settle this rich new region 
at peril of their lives and who, through him, were 
pleading to be placed under the shadow of their 
own flag. 

But Daniel Webster still clung obstinately to 

225 



The Road to Glory 

his belief that Oregon was a wilderness not worth 
the having. 

"It is impossible to build a wagon road over 
the mountains," he asserted positively. "My 
friend Sir George Simpson, the British minister, 
has told me so." 

"There is a wagon road over the mountains, Mr. 
Secretary," retorted Whitman, "for I have made it." 

It was the rattletrap old prairie-schooner that 
the missionary had dragged into Oregon on two 
wheels in the face of British opposition that 
clinched and copper-riveted the business. It 
knocked all the argument out of the famous Sec- 
retary, who, for almost the first time in his life, 
found himself at a loss for an answer. Here was 
a man of a type quite different from any that 
Webster had encountered in all his political ex- 
perience. He had no axe to grind; he asked for 
nothing; he wanted no money, or office, or lands, 
or anything except that which would add to the 
glory of the flag, the prosperity of the people, 
the wealth of the nation. It was a powerful ap- 
peal to the heart of President Tyler, 

"What you have told us has interested me 
deeply. Doctor Whitman," said the President at 
length. "Now tell me exactly what it is that 
you wish me to do." 

226 



The Preacher Who Rode 

"If it is true, Mr. President," replied Whit- 
man, "that, as Secretary Webster himself has 
said, 'the ownership of Oregon is very likely to fol- 
low the greater settlement and the larger amount 
of population,' then all I ask is that you won't 
barter away Oregon or permit of British inter- 
ference until I can organize a company of settlers 
and lead them across the plains to colonize the 
country. And this I will try to do at once." 

"Your credentials as a missionary vouch for 
your character. Doctor Whitman," replied the 
President. "Your extraordinary ride and your 
frostbitten limbs vouch for your patriotism. The 
request you make is a reasonable one. I am glad 
to grant it." 

"That is all I ask," said Whitman, rising. 

The object that had started him on his four- 
thousand-mile journey having been attained. 
Whitman wasted no time in resting. His work 
was still unfinished. It was up to him to get his 
settlers into Oregon, for the increasing arrogance 
of the Hudson's Bay Company confirmed him in 
his behef that the sole hope of saving the valley 
of the Columbia lay in a prompt and overwhelm- 
ing American immigration. He had, indeed, ar- 
rived at Washington in the very nick of time, for, 
if prior to his arrival the British Government 
*** 227 



The Road to Glory 

had renewed its offer of compromising by taking 
as the international boundary the forty-ninth 
parallel to the Columbia and thence down that 
river to the Pacific — thus giving the greater part 
of the present State of Washington to England 
— there is but Httle doubt that the offer would 
have been accepted. But the promise made by 
President Tyler to Whitman committed him 
against taking any action. 

Though Whitman was treated with respect and 
admiration by the President of the United States, 
the greeting he received when he reported himself 
at the headquarters of the American Board in 
Boston was far from being a cordial one. 

"What are you doing here, away from your 
post without permission.?" curtly inquired the 
secretary of the Board, eying his shaggy visitor 
with evident disapproval. 

"I came on business to Washington," answered 
Whitman, looking the secretary squarely in the 
eye. ** There was imminent danger of Oregon 
passing into the possession of England, and I felt 
it my duty to do what I could to prevent it." 

"Obtaining new territories for the nation is no 
part of our business," was the ungracious answer. 
"You would have done better not to have med- 
dled in political affairs. Here, take some money 

228 



"1 



The Preacher Who Rode 

and get some decent clothes, and then we'll dis- 
cuss this scheme of yours of piloting emigrants 
over the mountains." 

Meanwhile General Lovejoy had been busy 
upon the frontier spreading the news that early 
in the spring Doctor Whitman and himself would 
guide a body of settlers across the Rockies to 
Oregon. The news spread up and down the bor- 
der like fire in dry grass. The start was to be 
made from Weston, not far from where Kansas 
City now stands, and soon the emigrants came 
pouring in — men who had fought the Indians and 
the wilderness all the way from the Great Lakes 
to the Gulf; men who had followed Boone and 
Bowie and Carson and Davy Crockett; a hardy, 
sturdy, tenacious breed who were quite ready to 
fight, if need be, to hold this northwestern land 
where they had determined to build their homes. 
The grass was late, that spring of 1843, and the 
expedition did not get under way until the last 
week in June. At Fort Hall they met with the 
customary discouragements and threats from 
Captain Grant, but Whitman, Hke a modern 
Moses, urged them forward. On pushed the 
winding train of white-topped wagons, crossing 
the sun-baked prairies, climbing the Rockies, 
fording the intervening rivers, creeping along the 

229 



The Road to Glory 

edge of perilous precipices, until at last they stood 
upon the summit of the westernmost range, with 
the promised land lying spread below them. 
Whitman, the man to whom it was all due, reined 
in his horse and watched the procession of wagons, 
bearing upward of a thousand men, women, and 
children, make its slow progress down the moun- 
tains. He must have been very happy, for he 
had added the great, rich empire which the term 
Oregon implied to the Union.* 

For four years more Doctor Whitman continued 
his work of caring for the souls and the bodies of 
red men and white alike at the mission station of 
Waiilatpui. On August 6, 1846, as a direct result 
of his great ride, was signed the treaty whereby 
England surrendered her claims to Oregon. In 
those days news travelled slowly along the frontier, 
and it was the following spring before the British 
outposts along the Columbia learned that the Brit- 
ish minister at Washington had been beaten by 
the diplomacy of a Yankee missionary and that 
the great, despotic company which for well-nigh 

* Years afterward, Daniel Webster remarked to a friend: "It is 
safe to assert that our country owes it to Doctor Whitman and his 
associate missionaries that all the territory west of the Rocky Moun- 
tains and north of the Columbia is not now owned by England and 
held by the Hudson's Bay Company." — Dye's "McLoughlin and Old 
Oregon." 

230 



The Preacher Who Rode 

two centuries had been in undisputed control of 
this region, and which had come to regard it as 
inalienably its own, would have to move on. 
From that moment Marcus Whitman was a 
doomed man, for it was a long-standing boast of 
the company that no man defied it — and lived. 
The end came with dramatic suddenness. 
Early in the afternoon of November 20, 1847, 
Doctor Whitman was sitting in the mission sta- 
tion prescribing medicine, as was his custom, for 
those of his Indians who were ailing, when a 
blanketed warrior stole up behind him on silent 
moccasins and buried a hatchet in his brain. 
Then hell broke loose. Whooping fiends in paint 
and feathers appeared as from the pit. Mrs. 
Whitman was butchered as she knelt by her dying 
husband, their scalps being torn from their heads 
before they had ceased to breathe. Fourteen 
other missionaries were murdered by the red- 
skinned monsters and forty women and children 
were carried into a captivity that was worse than 
death. And this by the Indians who, just fifteen 
years before, had pleaded to have sent them the 
white man's Book of Heaven ! Though no con- 
clusive proof has ever been produced that they 
were whooped on to their atrocious deed by emis- 
saries of the great monopoly which had been 

231 



The Road to Glory 

forced out of Oregon as a result of Whitman's 
ride, there is but little doubt. Whitman had 
snatched an empire from its greedy fingers, and 
he had to pay the price. 

Within sight of the mission station, where for 
more than a decade they had worked together, 
and from which he had started on his historic 
ride, the martyr and his courageous wife He buried. 
You can see the grave for yourself should your 
travels take you Walla Walla way. You will 
need to have it pointed out to you, however, for 
you would never notice it otherwise: a modest 
headstone surrounded by a picket fence. Though 
Marcus Whitman added to the national domain 
a territory larger and possessing greater natural 
resources than the German Empire, though but 
for him Portland and Tacoma and Seattle and 
Spokane would be British instead of American, 
no memorial of him can be found in their parks 
or public buildings. Instead of honoring the man 
who discovered the streams and forests from which 
they are growing rich, who won for them the very 
lands on which they dwell, unworthy discussions 
and acrimonious debates as to the motives which 
animated him are the only tributes which have 
been paid him by the people for whom he did so 
much. But he sleeps peacefully on beside the 

232 



The Preacher Who Rode 

mighty river, oblivious to the pettiness and in- 
gratitude of it all. When history grants Marcus 
Whitman the tardy justice of perspective, over 
that lonely grave a monument worthy of a na- 
tion builder shall rise. 



233 



THE MARCH OF THE ONE THOUSAND 



THE MARCH OF THE ONE THOUSAND 

TWENTY-TWO centuries or thereabouts ago 
a Greek soldier of fortune named Xenophon 
found himself in a most trying and perilous sit- 
uation. Lured by avarice, adventure, and ambi- 
tion, he had accepted a commission in a legion of 
Hellenic mercenaries, ten thousand strong, who 
had been engaged by Cyrus to assist him in oust- 
ing his brother from the throne of Persia. But 
at Cunaxa Cyrus had met his death and his forces 
complete disaster, the Greek legionaries being left 
to make their way back to Europe as best they 
might. Under Xenophon's daring and resource- 
ful leadership they set out on that historic retreat 
across the plains of Asia Minor which their leader 
was to make immortal with his pen, eventually 
reaching Constantinople, after an absence of fif- 
teen months and a total journey of about three 
thousand five hundred miles, with little save their 
weapons and their lives. Xenophon's story of the 
March of the Ten Thousand as told in his "Anab- 
asis," is the most famous military narrative ever 
written; it is used as a text-book in colleges and 

237 



The Road to Glory 

schools, and is familiar wherever the history of 
Greece is read. 

Yet how many of those who know the "Anab- 
asis'* by heart are aware that Xenophon's ex- 
ploit has been surpassed on our own continent, 
in our own times, and by our own countrymen ? 
Where is the text-book which contains so much 
as a reference to the march of the One Thousand ? 
How many of the students who can glibly rattle 
off the details of Xenophon's march across the 
Mesopotamian plains have ever even heard of 
Doniphan's march across the plains of Mexico ? 
During that march, which occupied twelve 
months, a force of American volunteers, barely a 
thousand strong, traversed upward of six thousand 
miles of territory, most of which was unknown and 
bitterly hostile, and returned to the United States 
bringing with them seventeen pieces of artillery 
and a hundred battle-flags taken on fields whose 
names their countrymen had never so much as 
heard before. Because it is the most remarkable 
campaign in all our history, and because it is too 
glorious an episode to be lost in the mists of ob- 
livion, I will, with your permission, tell its story. 

Early in May, 1846, Mexico, angered by the 
annexation of Texas, declared war against the 
United States. Hostilities began a few days later, 

238 



The March of the One Thousand 

when the Army of Occupation under General 
Zachary Taylor, whom this campaign was to 
make President, crossed the Rio Grande at Mata- 
moros and defeated the Mexicans in quick suc- 
cession at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. 
The original plan of campaign was for the Army 
of Occupation to penetrate directly into the heart 
of Mexico via Monterey; the Army of the Centre, 
under General Wool, to operate against Chihua- 
hua, the metropolis of the north, two hundred and 
twenty-five miles below the Rio Grande; while 
an expeditionary force under Colonel Stephen 
Watts Kearny, known as the Army of the West, 
was ordered to march on Santa Fe for the con- 
quest of New Mexico. Subsequently this plan 
was changed: General Scott captured Vera Cruz 
and used it as a base for his advance on the capi- 
tal; General Wool, instead of descending on Chi- 
huahua, effected a juncture with General Taylor 
at Saltillo; and Colonel Kearny, after the taking 
of New Mexico, divided his force into three sepa- 
rate commands. The first he led in person across 
the continent to the conquest of California; the 
second, under Colonel Sterling Price, was left to 
garrison Santa Fe and hold New Mexico; the 
third, consisting of a thousand Missouri volun- 
teers under Colonel Alexander Doniphan, was or- 

239 



The Road to Glory 

dered to make a descent upon the state of Chihua- 
hua and join General WooFs division at Chihuahua 
City. The march of this regiment of raw recruits 
from Fort Leavenworth to Santa Fe, El Paso, 
Chihuahua, Saltillo, and Matamoros is known as 
Doniphan's Expedition. 

When, echoing Mexico's declaration of war, 
came President Polk's call for fifty thousand vol- 
unteers. Governor Edwards, of Missouri, turned 
to Colonel Doniphan for assistance in raising the 
quota of that State. He could not have chosen 
better, for Alexander Doniphan combined prac- 
tical military experience and remarkable execu- 
tive ability with the most extraordinary personal 
magnetism. Though a citizen of Missouri, Doni- 
phan was a native of Kentucky, his father, who was 
a comrade of Daniel Boone, having pushed west- 
ward with that great adventurer to "the dark 
and bloody ground," where, in 1808, Alexander 
was born. Left fatherless at the age of six, he was 
sent to live with his elder brother at Augusta, 
Ky., where he received the best education that 
the frontier afforded. Graduating from the Meth- 
odist college in Augusta when nineteen, he took 
up the study of law and in 1833 moved to Liberty, 
Mo., where his pronounced abilities quickly 
brought him reputation and a large and profitable 

240 



The March of the One Thousand 

clientele. A born organizer, he took a prominent 
part in building up the State militia, commanding 
a brigade of the expeditionary force which was 
despatched in 1838 to quell the insurrectionary 
movement among the Mormons at Far West. A 
polished and convincing orator, he met with in- 
stant success when he set out through upper 
Missouri to raise recruits for service in Mexico. 
The force thus raised was designated as the ist 
Missouri Mounted Volunteers, and no finer re- 
giment of horse ever clattered behind the guidons. 
Missouri, then on our westernmost frontier, was 
peopled by hardy pioneers, and the youths who 
filled the ranks of the regiment were the sons of 
those pioneers and possessed all the courage and 
endurance of their fathers. Though Doniphan 
was a brigadier-general of militia and had seen 
active service, he enlisted as a private in the 
regiment which he had raised, but when the elec- 
tion for officers came to be held he was chosen 
colonel by acclamation. If ever a man looked the 
beau sahreur it was Doniphan. He was then in 
his eight-and-thirtieth year and so imposing in 
appearance that the mere sight of him in any 
assemblage would have caused the question: 
*'Who is that man ?" to go round. Six feet four 
in his stockings; crisp, curling hair, which, though 

241 



The Road to Glory 

not red, was suspiciously near it; features which 
would have been purest Grecian had not an aqui- 
line nose lent them strength and distinction; a 
complexion as fair and delicate as a woman's; a 
temperament that was poetic, even romantic, 
without being effeminate; a sense of humor so 
highly developed that he never failed to recog- 
nize a joke when he heard one; a personal mod- 
esty which was as delightful as it was unaffected; 
manners so courtly and polished as to suggest an 
upbringing in a palace rather than on the fron- 
tier; conversation that was witty, brilliant, and 
wonderfully fascinating — there you have Alex- 
ander Doniphan en silhouettey as it were. Small 
wonder that President Lincoln, when Colonel 
Doniphan was presented to him in after years, 
remarked: "Colonel, you are the only man I ever 
met whose appearance came up to my previous 
expectations." 

The Army of the West, of which Colonel Doni- 
phan's Missourians formed a part, was ordered to 
mobilize at Fort Leavenworth, where several weeks 
were spent in completing the equipment, collect- 
ing supplies, and teaching the recruits the rudi- 
ments of drill. Everything being complete down 
to the last horseshoe, on the morning of June 26, 
1846, the expedition, comprising barely two thou- 

242 



The March of the One Thousand 

sand men in all, headed by Colonel Kearny with 
two squadrons of United States dragoons, smart 
and soldierly in their flat-topped, visored caps and 
their shell-jackets of blue piped with yellow, and 
followed by a mile-long train of white-topped 
wagons, set out across the grassy prairies on a 
march which was to end in the conquest and an- 
nexation of a territory larger than all the United 
States at that time. It would be difficult to ex- 
press the hopes and apprehensions of the volun- 
teers and of those who watched and waved to 
them, when, with the bands playing "The Girl I 
Left Behind Me," they moved out of Fort Leaven- 
worth on that sunny summer's morning and turned 
their horses' heads toward the south — and Mexico. 
At that time the American people's knowledge of 
Mexico was very meagre, for the geographies of 
the day, though indicating very clearly the Great 
American Desert, as it was called, stretching long 
and wide and yellow between Missouri and Mex- 
ico, showed little beyond the barest outlines of 
the vast unexplored regions to the west and south. 
The people of Missouri, however, knew more than 
any others, for their traders, for more than twenty 
years, had laboriously traversed the dangerous 
trail which led from Independence to the northern- 
most of the Mexican trading-posts at Santa Fe and 

243 



The Road to Glory 

thence on to Chihuahua. Thus they knew that 
the regions between the Missouri and the Great 
Desert were Indian country and dangerous, and 
that those beyond were Indian and Mexican 
and more dangerous still. No wonder that the 
volunteers felt that every mile of their advance 
into this terra incognita would reveal perils, mar- 
vels, and surprises; no wonder that those who 
were left behind prayed fervently for the safety 
of the husbands and sons and lovers who had 
gone into the wild as fighters go. 

There was no road, not even a path, leading 
from Fort Leavenworth into the Santa Fe trail, 
and, as the intervening country was slashed across 
by innumerable streams and canyons, bridges and 
roads had to be built for the wagons. The prog- 
ress of the column was frequently interrupted by 
precipitous bluffs whose sides, often two hundred 
feet or more in height, were so steep and slippery 
that it was impossible for the mules to get a foot- 
hold, and the heavily laden wagons, with a hun- 
dred sweating, panting, cursing men straining at 
the drag-ropes, had to be hauled up by hand. As 
the column pressed southward the heat became un- 
bearable. The tall, rank grass harbored swarms of 
flies and mosquitoes which attacked the soldiers 
until their eyes were sometimes swollen shut and 

244 



The March of the One Thousand 

clung to the flanks of the mules and horses until 
the tormented animals streamed with blood. In 
places the ground became so soft and marshy that 
the wagons sank to the hubs and the march was 
halted while a dozen teams hauled them out 
again. Numbers of the wagons broke down daily 
under the terrific strain to which they were sub- 
jected, and, as though this was not enough, the 
troubles of the teamsters were increased by the 
mules, which, maddened by the attacks of insects 
and made refractory by the unaccustomed condi- 
tions, stubbornly refused to work. 

Preceding the column was a hunter train, com- 
manded by Thomas Forsyth, a celebrated fron- 
tiersman. Leaving camp about eleven in the 
evening and riding through the night, the hunters 
and butchers would reach the site selected for the 
next camp at daybreak and would promptly get 
to work killing and dressing the game which 
swarmed upon the prairies, so that a supply of 
fresh meat — buffalo, elk, antelope, and deer — was 
always awaiting the troops upon their arrival at 
sundown, while along the banks of the Arkansas 
the men brought in quantities of wild grapes, 
plums, and rice. Arriving at the towering butte, 
standing solitary in the prairie, known as Pawnee 
Rock, Forsyth asked his hunters to ascend it with 

245 



The Road to Glory 

him. Even these old plainsmen, accustomed as 
they were to seeing prodigious herds of game, 
whistled in amazement at the spectacle upon 
which they looked down, for from the base of the 
rock straightaway to the horizon the prairie was 
literally carpeted with buffalo. Forsyth, who was 
always conservative in his expressions, estimated 
that five hundred thousand buffalo were in sight, 
but his hunters asserted that eight hundred thou- 
sand would be much nearer the number of animals 
seen from the summit of Pawnee Rock that 
morning. 

Crossing the Arkansas, the expedition entered 
upon the Great American Desert — as sterile, 
parched, and sandy a waste as the Sahara. 
Dreary, desolate, boundless solitude reigned every- 
where. The heat was like a blast from an opened 
furnace door. The earth was literally parched to 
a crust, and this crust had broken open in great 
cracks and fissures. Such patches of vegetation 
as there were had been parched and shrivelled by 
the pitiless sun until they were as yellow as the 
sand itself. Soon even this pretense of vegeta- 
tion disappeared; the parched wire grass was stiff- 
ened by incrustations of salt; streaks of alkali 
spread across the face of the desert like livid 
scars; the pulverized earth looked and felt like 

246 



i 



The March of the One Thousand 

smouldering embers. The mules grew weak from 
thirst and some of the wagons had to be aban- 
doned. Horses fell dead from heat and exhaus- 
tion, but the men thus forced to march on foot 
managed to keep pace with the mounted men. 
Their boots gave out, however, and for miles the 
line of their march could be traced by bloody 
footprints. Wind-storms drove the loose sand 
of the desert against them like a sand-blast, 
cutting their lips, filling their eyes and ears and 
sometimes almost suffocating them. Though con- 
stantly tantalized by mirages of cool lakes with 
restful groves reflected in them, they would fre- 
quently fail to find a pool of water or a patch of 
grass in a long day's march and would plod for- 
ward with their swollen tongues hanging from 
their mouths. Those who saw the smart body 
of soldiery which rode out of Fort Leavenworth 
would scarcely have recognized them in the strag- 
gling column of ragged, sun-scorched skeletons of 
men, sitting their gaunt and jaded horses, which 
crossed the well-named Purgatoire eight weeks 
later, and saw before them the snow peaks of the 
Cimarrons. 

Although four thousand Mexican troops under 
General Armijo had been gathered at the pass of 
theGalisteo, fifteen miles north of Santa Fe, where, 

247 



The Road to Glory 

as a result of the rugged character of the country, 
they could have offered a long and desperate resist- 
ance and could only have been dislodged at a great 
sacrifice of life, upon the approach of the American 
column they retired without firing a shot and re- 
treated to Chihuahua. On the i8th of August, 
1846, the American forces entered Santa Fe, and 
four days later Colonel Kearny issued a proclama- 
tion annexing the whole of New Mexico to the 
Union. As the red-white-and-green tricolor float- 
ing over the palace, which had sheltered a long line 
of Spanish, Indian, and Mexican governors, dropped 
slowly down the staff and in its stead was broken 
out a flag of stripes and stars, from the troops 
drawn up in the plaza came a hurricane of cheers, 
while the field-guns belched forth a national sa- 
lute. As United States Senator Benton described 
this remarkable accomplishment in his speech of 
welcome to the returning troops: "A colonel's 
command, called an army, marches eight hundred 
miles beyond its base, its communications liable 
to be cut by the slightest effort of the enemy — 
mostly through a desert — the whole distance al- 
most totally destitute of resources, to conquer a 
territory of two hundred and fifty thousand square 
miles, without a military chest; the people of this 
territory are declared citizens of the United States, 

248 



The March of the One Thousand 

and the invaders are thus debarred the rights of 
war to seize needful suppKes; they arrive with- 
out food before the capital — a city two hundred 
and forty years old, garrisoned by regular troops." 
To understand the reason for General Armijo's 
evacuation of New Mexico without firing a shot 
in its defense, it is necessary to here interject a 
chapter of secret history. The bloodless annexa- 
tion of New Mexico was due, not to Colonel 
Kearny, but to an American trader and frontiers- 
man named James Macgoffin. Macgoffin, who had 
lived and done business for years in Chihuahua, 
was intimately acquainted with Mexico and the 
Mexicans. He was not only familiar with the 
physiography of the country, but he understood 
the psychology of its people and how to take ad- 
vantage of it. When war was declared he hap- 
pened to be in Washington. Going to Senator 
Benton, he explained that he wished to offer his 
services to the nation and outlined to the deeply 
interested senator a plan he had in mind. Sen- 
ator Benton immediately took Macgoffin to the 
White House and obtained him an interview with 
the President and the Secretary of War, who, after 
listening to his scheme, gladly availed themselves 
of his services. Macgoffin thereupon hastened to 
Independence, Mo., where he hastily outfitted a 

249 



The Road to Glory 

wagon-train and some weeks later, in his cus- 
tomary role of trader, arrived at Santa Fe, reach- 
ing there several weeks in advance of Kearny's 
column. The details of his dealings with Gen- 
eral Armijo, of how he worked upon his cupidity, 
and of the precise inducements which he offered 
him to withdraw his forces from the pass of the 
Galisteo, to evacuate Santa Fe and leave all New 
Mexico to be occupied by the Americans, are bur- 
ied in the archives of the Department of State, 
and will probably never be known. But though 
Armijo fled and Kearny effected a bloodless con- 
quest, Macgoffin's work was not yet done. There 
remained the most dangerous part of his mission, 
which was to do for General Wool in Chihuahua 
what he had done for Colonel Kearny in Santa 
Fe. That he carried his life in his hands no one 
knew better than himself, for had the Mexicans 
learned of his mission he would have died before 
a firing-party. As a matter of fact, he did arouse 
the suspicions of the authorities in Chihuahua, 
but, owing to their inability to confirm them and 
to his personal friendship with certain high offi- 
cials, instead of being executed he was sent as a 
prisoner to Durango, where he was held until the 
close of the war. Upon his return to Washing- 
ton after hostihties had ended. Congress, in se- 

250 



The March of the One Thousand 

cret session, voted him fifty thousand dollars as 
remuneration for his services, but, though Presi- 
dent Taylor urged the prompt payment of the 
same, the War Department arbitrarily reduced 
the sum to thirty thousand dollars, which was in- 
sufficient to cover the disbursements he had made. 
Ingratitude, it will thus be seen, is not confined to 
princes. 

Having organized a territorial government, 
brought order out of chaos, and put New Mexico's 
house in thorough order, Kearny, now become a 
general, set out on September 25 with only three 
hundred dragoons for the conquest of California. 
This march of Kearny's, with a mere handful of 
troopers, across fifteen hundred miles of unknown 
country and his invasion, subjugation, and occupa- 
tion of a bitterly hostile territory are almost with- 
out parallel in history. Colonel Doniphan, who 
was left in command of all the forces in New Mex- 
ico, rapidly pushed forward his preparations for his 
contemplated descent upon Chihuahua, delaying 
his start only until the arrival of Colonel Price's 
column to occupy the newly conquered territory. 
But on October 11, just as everything was in 
readiness for the expedition's departure, a des- 
patch rider brought him orders from Kearny to 
delay his movement upon Chihuahua and proceed 

251 



The Road to Glory 

into the country of the Navajos to punish them 
for the depredations they had recently committed 
along the western borders of New Mexico. The 
disappointment of the Missourians, when these 
orders were communicated to them, can be im- 
agined, for they had volunteered for a war against 
Mexicans, not Indians. But that did not prevent 
them from doing the business they were ordered 
to do and doing it well. Crossing the Cordilleras 
in the depths of winter without tents and without 
winter clothing, Doniphan rounded up the hostile 
chiefs and forced them to sign a treaty of peace 
by which they agreed to abstain from further 
molestation of their neighbors, whether Indian, 
Mexican, or American. A novel treaty, that, 
signed on the western confines of New Mexico 
between parties who had scarcely so much as 
heard each other's names before, and giving peace 
and protection to Mexicans who were hostile to 
both. No wonder that the Navajos and the New 
Mexicans, who had been at war with each other 
for centuries, looked with amazement and respect 
on an enemy who, disregarding all racial and 
religious differences, stepped in and drew up a 
treaty which brought peace to all three. 

Owing to the delay caused by the expedition 
against the Navajos, it was the middle of Decem- 

252 



The March of the One Thousand 

ber and bitterly cold before the column was at 
last ready to start upon the conquest of Chihua- 
hua. The line of march was due south from 
Santa Fe, along the east bank of the Rio Grande, 
to El Paso del Norte. Ninety miles of it lay 
through the Jornada del Muerto — the "Journey 
of Death." In traversing this desert the men suf- 
fered terribly, for the weather had now become 
extremely cold, and there was neither wood for 
fires nor water to drink. The soldiers, though 
footsore with marching, benumbed by the piercing 
winds, and weakened from lack of food, pushed 
grimly forward through the night, for there were 
few halts for rest, setting fire to the dry bunches 
of prairie grass and the tinder-like stalks of the 
soap-plant, which would blaze up like a flash of 
powder and as quickly die out, leaving the men 
shivering in the cold. The course of the strag- 
gling column could be described for miles by these 
sudden glares of light which intermittently stabbed 
the darkness. Toward midnight the head of the 
column would halt for a little rest, but through- 
out the night the weary, limping companies would 
continue to straggle in, the men throwing them- 
selves supperless upon the gravel and instantly 
falling asleep from sheer exhaustion. At day- 
light they were awakened by the bugles and the 

253 



The Road to Glory 

march would be resumed, with no breakfast save 
hardtack, for there was no fuel upon the desert 
with which to cook. Such was the three days* 
march of Doniphan's men across the Journey of 
Death. On the 22d of December the expedition 
reached the Mexican hamlet of Donanna, where the 
soldiers found an abundance of cornmeal, dried 
fruit, sheep, and cattle, as well as grain and fodder 
for their starving horses, and, most welcome of 
all, streams of running water. The army was 
now within the boundaries of the state of Chi- 
huahua. 

On Christmas Day, after a shorter march than 
usual, the column encamped at the hamlet of 
Brazito, twenty-five miles from El Paso, on the 
Rio Grande. While the men were scattered among 
the mesquite in quest of wood and water a splut- 
ter of musketry broke out along their front, and 
the pickets came racing in with the news that a 
strong force of Mexicans was advancing. The of- 
ficers, as cool as though back at Fort Leaven- 
worth, threw their men into line for their first 
battle. Colonel Doniphan and his staff had been 
playing loo to determine who should have a fine 
Mexican horse that had been captured by the 
advance-guard that morning. 

"Fm afraid we'll have to stop the game long 

254 



The March of the One Thousand 

enough to whip the greasers," Doniphan remarked, 
carefully laying his cards face down upon the 
ground, "but just bear in mind that Tm ahead 
in the score. We'll play it out after the scrap is 
over." The game was never finished, however, 
for during the battle the horse which formed the 
stakes mysteriously disappeared. 

The Mexican force, which was under the com- 
mand of General Ponce de Leon, was composed 
of some thirteen hundred men. Five hundred of 
these consisted of the Vera Cruz lancers, one of 
the crack regiments of the Mexican army; the 
remainder were volunteer cavalry and infantry 
from El Paso and Chihuahua. When a few hun- 
dred yards separated the opposing forces, a lieu- 
tenant of lancers, magnificently mounted and car- 
rying a black flag — a signal that no quarter would 
be given — spurred forward at full gallop until 
within a few paces of the American line, when, 
with characteristic Mexican bravado, he suddenly 
jerked his horse back upon its haunches. Doni- 
phan's interpreter, a lean frontiersman clad in the 
broad-brimmed hat and fringed buckskin of the 
plains, rode out to meet him. 

"General Ponce de Leon, in command of the 
Mexican forces," began the young officer arro- 
gantly, "presents his compliments to your com- 

255 



The Road to Glory 

mander and demands that he appear instantly 
before him." 

"If your general is so all-fired anxious to see 
Colonel Doniphan," was the dry answer, "let him 
come over here. We won't run away from him." 

"We'll come and take him, then !" shouted the 
hot-headed youngster angrily; "and remember 
that we shall give no quarter!" 

"Come right ahead, young feller," drawled the 
plainsman, as the messenger spurred back to the 
Mexican lines, his sinister flag streaming behind 
him. "You'll find us right here waitin' fer you." 

No sooner had the messenger delivered the 
American's defiance than the trumpets of the 
Mexican cavalry sounded and the lancers, de- 
ploying into line, moved forward at a trot. They 
presented a beautiful picture on their sleek and 
shining horses, their green tunics faced with scarlet, 
their blue skin-tight pantaloons, their brass-plated, 
horse-tailed schapkas, and the cloud of scarlet 
pennons which fluttered from their lances. The 
bugles snarled again, the five hundred lances 
dropped as one from vertical to horizontal, five 
hundred horses broke from a trot into a gallop, 
and from five hundred throats burst a high-pitched 
scream: ''Viva Mexico! Viva Mexico!'^ 

Waiting until the line of cheering, charging 

256 



The March of the One Thousand 

horsemen was within a hundred and fifty yards, 
the officer in command of the American left called, 
in the same tone he would have used on parade: 
**Now, boys, let 'em have it!'* Before the tor- 
rent of lead that was poured into it the Mexi- 
can line halted as abruptly as though it had run 
into a stone wall, shivered, hesitated. Dead men 
toppled to the ground, wounded men swayed 
drunkenly in their saddles while great splotches 
of crimson spread upon their gaudy uniforms, 
riderless horses galloped madly away, and cursing 
officers tore up and down, frantically trying to re- 
form the shattered squadrons. At this critical 
juncture, when the Mexicans were debating 
whether to advance or to retreat. Captain Reed, 
recognizing the psychological value of the mo- 
ment, hurled his company of dismounted Mis- 
sourians straight at the Mexican line. So furious 
was the onset of the little band of troopers that 
the crack cavalry of Mexico, already on the verge 
of demoralization, turned and fled. Meanwhile 
the Chihuahua infantry, taking advantage of the 
cover afforded by the dense chaparral, had moved 
forward against the American right. As the Mex- 
icans advanced Doniphan ordered his men down 
on their faces, cautioning them to hold their fire 
until he gave the word. The advancing Mexi- 

257 



The Road to Glory 

cans, seeing men drop all along the line and sup- 
posing that their scattering fire had wrought 
terrible execution, with a storm of vivas dashed 
forward at the double. But as they emerged into 
the open, barely a stone's throw from the Ameri- 
can Hne, the whole right wing rose as one man 
and poured in a paralyzing volley. "Now, boys, 
go in and finish 'em!" roared Doniphan, a gi- 
gantic and commanding figure on a great chestnut 
horse. With the high-keyed, piercing cheer which 
in later years was to be known as "the rebel 
yell," the Missourians leaped forward to do his 
bidding. In advance of the line raced Forsyth, 
the chief of scouts, and another plainsman, firing 
as they ran. And every time their rifles cracked a 
Mexican would stagger and fall headlong. 

Meanwhile the American centre had repulsed 
the enemy with equal success, though a field-piece 
which the Mexicans had brought into action at 
incautiously close range continued to annoy them 
with its fire. 

"What the hell do you reckon that is ?" in- 
quired one Missourian of another, as a solid shot 
whined hungrily overhead. 

"A cannon, I reckon," answered some one. 

"Come on! Let's go and get it!" shouted 
some one else, and at the suggestion a dozen men 

258 



The March of the One Thousand 

dashed like sprinters across the bullet-swept zone 
which lay between them and the field-piece. So 
quickly was it done that the Mexican gunners 
were bayonetted where they stood and in an- 
other moment the gun, turned in the opposite 
direction, was pouring death into the ranks of its 
late owners. In thirty minutes the battle of the 
Brazito was history, and the Mexicans — such of 
them as were left — were pouring southward in a 
demoralized retreat, which did not halt until they 
reached Chihuahua. Five hundred Americans — 
for the balance of Doniphan's column did not 
reach the scene until the battle was virtually over 
— in a stand-up fight on unfamiliar ground, with 
all the odds against them, whaled the life out of 
thirteen hundred as good soldiers as Mexico could 
put into the field. In killed, wounded, and pris- 
oners the Mexicans lost upward of two hundred 
men; the American casualties consisted of eight 
wounded. In such fashion did Doniphan and his 
Missourians celebrate the Christmas of 1846. 

The expedition remained six weeks at El Paso, 
awaiting the arrival of a battery of artillery which 
Doniphan had asked Colonel Price to send him 
from Santa Fe; so February was well advanced 
before the troops started on the final stage of their 
advance upon Chihuahua. A few days after his 

259 



The Road to Glory 

departure from El Paso Colonel Doniphan re- 
ceived astounding news. An American named 
Rodgers, who had escaped from Chihuahua at 
peril of his life, brought word that General Wool, 
to whom Doniphan had been ordered to report 
at Chihuahua, had abandoned his march upon 
that city and that the Mexicans were mobilizing 
a formidable force to defend the place. Though 
Wool's change of plan was known in the United 
States, Doniphan had penetrated so far into the 
enemy's country that there was no way to warn 
him of his danger, and the nation waited with 
bated breath for news of the annihilation of his 
little column. Even at this stage of the march 
Doniphan could have retraced his steps and 
would have been more than justified in doing so, 
for it seemed little short of madness for a force 
of barely a thousand men, wholly without sup- 
port, to invade a state which was aware of their 
coming and was fully prepared to receive them. 
It shows the stuff of which Doniphan and his 
Missourians were made that they never once 
considered turning back. 

On February 12 the expedition reached the 
edge of the arid, sun-baked desert, threescore miles 
in width, whose pitiless expanse lies squarely 
athwart the route from El Paso to Chihuahua. 

260 




In another moment the gun was pouring death into the 
ranks of its late owners. 



The March of the One Thousand 

Two days later, after giving the animals an oppor- 
tunity to feed and rest, the never-to-be-forgotten 
desert march began. Aware that not a drop of 
water was to be had until the desert was crossed, 
the troopers not only filled their water-bottles, 
but tied their swords about their necks and filled 
the empty scabbards with water. The first day 
the column covered twenty miles and encamped 
for the night in the heart of the desert. The fol- 
lowing day the loose sand became so deep that 
the wagons were buried to the hubs and the teams 
had to be doubled up to pull them through. 
The mules were so weak from thirst, however, 
that the soldiers had to put their shoulders to 
the wheels before the wagons could be extricated 
from the engulfing sands. Notwithstanding this 
delay, twenty-four more miles were covered be- 
fore the soldiers, their lips cracked open, their 
tongues swollen, and their throats parched and 
burning, threw themselves upon the sands to 
snatch a few hours' rest. The next day was a 
veritable purgatory, for the canteens were empty, 
the horses and mules were neighing piteously for 
water, and many of the men were delirious and 
muttered incoherently as they staggered across 
the llanos, swooning beneath waves of shifting 
heat. As the day wore on their sufferings grew 

261 



The Road to Glory 

more terrible; many of the supplies had to be 
abandoned, and finally, when only ten miles from 
water, the oxen were turned loose. Though only 
a few miles now separated them from the Guya- 
gas Springs, where there was water and grass 
a-plenty, men and horses were too weak to cun- 
tinue the march and fell upon the desert, little 
caring whether they lived or died. Indeed, had 
it not been for a providential rain-storm which 
burst upon them a few hours later, quenching 
their thirst and cooling their burning bodies, a 
trail of bleaching skeletons would probably have 
marked the end of Doniphan's expedition. 

Upon reaching the lush meadows which bor- 
dered the little lake* near Guyagas Springs a 
long sigh of relief went up from the perspiring 
column, for here they could spend a few days in 
rest and recuperation. But, though they had, as 
by a miracle, escaped a death by thirst, they 
were suddenly confronted by another and even 
greater danger. A trooper carelessly knocked the 
ashes from his pipe upon the ground; the sun- 
dried grass instantly took fire; and before the 
soldiers realized their peril, a waist-high wall of 
flame, fanned by a brisk wind, was bearing down 

* The efflorescent soda incrusted on the margin of the water was 
used by the soldiers as a substitute for saleratus. 

262 



The March of the One Thousand 

upon them. All attempts to check the progress 
of the fire proving useless, the animals were hast- 
ily harnessed and a desperate attempt was made 
by the teamsters to get their wagons ahead of 
the flames, but a gale was blowing in the direc- 
tion the column was advancing and the barrier 
of fire, now spread out for many miles, was ap- 
proaching faster than a man could walk; so the 
wagons and guns were run into the lake. That 
the expedition was saved was due to the ingenu- 
ity of a trooper in the Missouri Horse Guards, 
who had had experience with prairie fires before. 
Acting upon his suggestion, the soldiers were dis- 
mounted and ordered to cut the grass with their 
sabres over a zone thirty feet in width and then 
set fire to the grass standing next to the wind, 
which burned slowly until it met the advancing 
conflagration. That night the men slept on the 
bare and blackened earth, without forage for their 
horses but with thankfulness in their hearts. 

A few days after this episode the scouts in 
advance of the column saw a group of horse- 
men riding toward them across the plain. As the 
party came nearer it was seen to consist of thirty 
or forty Indians led by a single white man. The 
latter proved to be one of the strangest characters 
ever produced by the wild life of the frontier. 

263 



The Road to Glory 

His name was Captain James Kirker, or, as he 
was called by the Mexicans, Santiago Querque, 
and he was an Indian fighter by profession. By 
this I do not mean that he took part in the period- 
ical wars between the Indians and the whites, but 
that he contracted to kill Indians at so much per 
head, just as hunters in certain portions of the 
country make a business of tracking and killing 
vermin for the bounty. For many years past 
Kirker, whose fame was as wide as the plains, 
had been employed by the state of Chihuahua to 
exterminate the Apaches who terrorized its bor- 
ders, and, thinking to fight the devil with fire, 
he had imported twoscore Delaware braves, noted 
even among the Indians for their abihties as 
trackers, to help him in hunting down the Apaches. 
Shortly before the outbreak of the war the gov- 
ernment of Chihuahua owed Kirker thirty thou- 
sand dollars for the scalps of Apaches he had 
slain, but when hostiHties began it refused to pay 
him and threatened him and his braves with 
imprisonment if they persisted in their claims. 
Thus it came about that Doniphan received a 
considerable addition to the strength of his force, 
for no sooner had Kirker received word of the 
approach of the column than he and his Dela- 
wares slipped out of Chihuahua between two days 

264 



The March of the One Thousand 

and rode off to oflFer their services to their coun- 
trymen. Because of his remarkable knowledge of 
the country and his acquaintance with the lan- 
guage and customs of the people, Kirker proved 
of essential service to Doniphan as an interpreter 
and forage-master, while his Delawares were in- 
valuable as scouts. In appearance Kirker was a 
dime-novel hero come to life, for his long hair 
fell upon his shoulders; his mustaches were of 
a size and fierceness that would have abashed a 
pirate; from neck to knees he was dressed in 
gorgeously embroidered, soft-tanned buckskin; 
his breeches disappeared in high-heeled boots or- 
namented with enormous spurs, which jangled 
noisily when he walked; his high-crowned som- 
brero was heavy with gold braid and bullion; 
thrust carelessly into his scarlet sash was a veri- 
table armory of knives and pistols, and the thor- 
oughbred he bestrode could show its heels to any 
horse in northern Mexico. 

On the 28th of February, when within less than 
ten miles of Chihuahua, the Americans caught 
their first glimpse of the army which had been 
assembled to receive them. The enemy occupied 
the brow of a rocky eminence, known as Sacra- 
mento Hill, which rises sharply from a plateau 
guarded on one side by the Sacramento River and 

265 



The Road to Glory 

on the other by a dried-up watercourse, known 
as an arroyo seco. The great natural strength of 
the position had been enormously increased by 
an elaborate system of fieldworks consisting of 
twenty-eight redoubts and intrenchments. Here, 
in this apparently impregnable position, which 
was the key to the capital of the state, and 
hence to all northern Mexico, the Mexican army, 
which, according to the muster-rolls which fell into 
Doniphan's possession after the battle, consisted 
of four thousand two hundred and twenty men, 
was prepared to offer a desperate resistance to 
the invader. To oppose this strongly intrenched 
force, which comprised the very flower of the 
Mexican army. Colonel Doniphan had one thou- 
sand and sixty-four men, of whom one hundred 
and fifty were teamsters. No wonder that the 
Mexicans were so confident of victory that they 
had prepared great quantities of shackles and 
handcuffs to be used in marching the captured 
gringos to the capital in triumph. 

Now, if Colonel Doniphan had acted according 
to the cut-and-dried rules of the game as taught 
in mihtary schools and books on tactics and had 
done what the Mexican commander expected him 
to do, there is little doubt that he and his men — 
such of them as were not killed in battle or shot 

266 



The March of the One Thousand 

in cold blood afterward — ^would have gone to the 
City of Mexico in the chains so thoughtfully pro- 
vided for them. But being a shirt-sleeve fighter, 
as it were, and not in the least hampered by a 
knowledge of scientific warfare, he did the very 
thing that he was not expected to do. Instead 
of attempting to fight his way down the high- 
road which led to Chihuahua, which was com- 
manded by the enemy^s guns, and where they 
could have wiped him out without leaving their 
intrenchments, he formed his column into a sort 
of hollow square, cavalry in front, infantry on 
the flanks, and guns and wagons in the centre, 
suddenly deflected it to the right, and before the 
Mexicans grasped the significance of the ma- 
noeuvre he had thrown his force across the arroyo 
seco, had gained the summit of the plateau, and 
had deployed his men upon the highland in such a 
position that the Mexican commander was com- 
pelled to hastily reconstruct his whole plan of 
battle. By this single brilliant manoeuvre Don- 
iphan at once nullified the advantage the Mexi- 
cans derived from their commanding position. 

The Americans scarcely had time to get their 
guns into position and form their line of battle 
before a cavalry brigade, twelve hundred strong, 
led by General Garcia Conde, ex-minister of war, 

267 



The Road to Glory 

swept down from the fortified heights with a 
thunder and roar to open the engagement. This 
time there was no waiting, as at the Brazitos, for 
the Mexicans to get within close range; the ad- 
vancing force was too formidable for that. In 
the centre of the American position was posted 
the artillery — four howitzers and six field-guns — 
under Captain Weightman. Above the ever 
loudening thunder of the approaching cavalry 
could be heard that young officer's cool, clear 
voice: "Form battery! Action front! Load 
with grape! Fire at will!" As the wave of 
galloping horses and madly cheering men surged 
nearer, Weightman's gunners, getting the range 
with deadly accuracy, poured in their thirty shots 
a minute as methodically as though they were on 
a target-range. In the face of that blast of death 
the Mexican cavalry scattered Hke autumn leaves. 
Within five minutes after their bugles had 
screamed the charge, the finest brigade of cav- 
alry that ever followed Mexican kettle-drums, 
shattered, torn, and bleeding, had turned tail and 
was spurring full tilt for the shelter of the forti- 
fications, leaving the ground over which they had 
just passed strewn with their dead and dying. 
For the next fifty minutes the battle consisted of 
an artillery duel at long range, throughout which 

268 



The March of the One Thousand 

Colonel Doniphan sat on his war-horse at the 
rear of the American battery, his foot thrown 
carelessly across the pommel of his saddle, whit- 
tling a piece of wood — an object-lesson in cool- 
ness for his men and, incidentally, a splendid 
mark for the Mexican gunners. 

While the gmis of the opposing forces were ex- 
changing compliments at long range the Ameri- 
can officers busied themselves in forming their 
men preparatory to taking the offensive. That 
was Doniphan's plan of battle always — to get in 
the first blow. When everything was in readi- 
ness. Colonel Doniphan tossed away his stick, 
pocketed his knife, drew his sabre, and signalled 
to his bugler to sound the advance. As the 
bugles shrieked their signal the whole line, horse, 
foot, and guns, dashed forward at a run. It was 
a daring and hazardous proceeding, a thousand 
men charging across open ground and up a hill 
to carry fortifications held by a force four times 
the strength of their own, but its very audacity 
brought success. So splendid was the discipline 
which Doniphan had hammered into his force 
that the infantry officers ran sideways and back- 
ward in front of their men as they advanced, just 
as they would have done on the drill field, keep- 
ing them in such perfect step and order that, as 

269 



The Road to Glory 

an English eye-witness afterward remarked, a can- 
non-ball could have been fired between their legs 
down the line without injuring a man. Not a 
shot was fired by the Americans until they reached 
the first line of redoubts, behind which the Mexi- 
can officers were frantically endeavoring to steady 
their wavering men. As the Americans surged 
over the intrenchments they paused just long 
enough to pour in a volley and then went in with 
the bayonet. At almost the same moment Cap- 
tain Weightman brought his guns into action 
with a rattle and crash and began pouring a tor- 
rent of grape into the now thoroughly demoralized 
Mexicans. As the right wing stormed the breast- 
works an American sergeant who was well in ad- 
vance of the line, having emptied his rifle and 
pistols and being too hard pressed to reload them, 
threw away his weapons and defended himself by 
hurling rocks. When the order to charge was 
given, Kirker, the Indian fighter, called to an- 
other scout named Collins: "Say, Jim, let's see 
which of us can get into that battery first." The 
battery referred to was in the second redoubt, 
whence it was directing a galling fire upon the 
Americans over the heads of the Mexicans de- 
fending the first line of fortifications. Collins's 
only reply was to pull down his hat, draw his 

270 



The March of the One Thousand 

sword, bury his spurs in his horse's flanks, and 
ride at the battery as a steeplechaser rides at a 
water-jump, Kirker, his long hair streaming in 
the wind, tearing along beside him. Is it any 
wonder that the Mexicans exclaimed to each other: 
"These are not men we are fighting — they are 
devils !" 

All the companies were now pressing forward 
and pouring over the intrenchments, the Mexi- 
cans sullenly giving way before them. Mean- 
while the left wing, under Major Gilpin, had scaled 
the heights, swarmed over the breastworks, and 
driven out the enemy, while a company under 
Captain Hughes had burst into a battery defended 
by trenches filled with Mexican infantry, which 
they had literally cut to pieces, and had killed or 
captured the artillerymen as they were endeav- 
oring to set off the guns. Though the Mexican 
commander, General Heredia, made a desperate 
attempt to rally his panic-stricken troops under 
cover of repeated gallant charges by the cav- 
alry under Conde, the men were too far gone 
with terror to pay any heed to the frantic ap- 
peals of their officers. With the American cav- 
alry clinging to its flanks and deahng it blow upon 
savage blow, the retreat of the Mexican army 
quickly turned into a rout, the splendid force that 

271 



The Road to Glory 

had marched out of Chihuahua a few days before 
returning to it a beaten, cowed, and bleeding 
rabble. The battle of the Sacramento lasted three 
hours and a half, and in that time an American 
force of nine hundred and twenty-four effective 
men — the rest were teamsters — utterly routed a 
Mexican army of four thousand two hundred and 
twenty men fighting from behind supposedly im- 
pregnable intrenchments. In killed, wounded, 
and prisoners the Mexicans lost upward of nine 
hundred men; the Americans had four killed and 
seven wounded. The battle of the Sacramento 
was in many respects the most wonderful ever 
fought by American arms. For sheer audacity, 
disproportionate numbers, and sweeping success 
the battle of Manila Bay may be set down as its 
only rival. The only land battle at all approach- 
ing it was that of New Orleans, but there the 
Americans fought at home, on their own soil, be- 
hind fortifications. At Sacramento Doniphan's 
men attacked a fortified position held by troops 
outnumbering them more than four to one. They 
were in a strange land, thousands of miles from 
home. They were in rags, suffering from lack of 
food. They believed that they had been aban- 
doned by their own government and left to their 
fate. In case of defeat there was no hope of 

272 



The March of the One Thousand 

succor, no help — nothing but inevitable destruc- 
tion. That is why I say that the exploit of these 
Missourians has never been surpassed, if, indeed, 
it has ever been equalled in the annals of the 
world's warfare. 

There is little more to tell. The following day, 
with the regimental bands playing "Hail Colum- 
bia" and "Yankee Doodle," Colonel Doniphan 
and his men entered the city of Chihuahua in 
triumph. For two months they held undisputed 
possession of the metropolis of northern Mexico; 
the city was cleaned and policed; law and order 
were rigidly enforced and the rights of the citi- 
zens strictly respected. On the 28th of April, 
1847, in pursuance of orders received from Gen- 
eral Wool, the expedition evacuated Chihuahua 
and set out across an arid and desolate country 
for Saltillo, covering the six hundred and seventy- 
five miles in twenty-five days. After being re- 
viewed and publicly thanked by General Taylor, 
the Missourians started on the last stage of their 
wonderful march. Reaching Matamoros, at the 
mouth of the Rio Grande, they took ship for 
New Orleans, whose citizens went mad with en- 
thusiasm. Their journey by steamboat up the 
Mississippi was one continuous ovation; at every 
town they passed the whistles shrieked, the bells 

273 



The Road to Glory 

rang, and the townspeople cheered themselves 
hoarse at sight of the sun-browned veterans in 
their faded and tattered uniforms. On July i, 
after an absence of a little more than a year, to the 
strains of "Auld Lang Syne'* and "Home, Sweet 
Home," Doniphan and his One Thousand once 
again set foot on the soil of old Missouri. Going 
out from the western border of their State, they 
re-entered it from the east, having made a circuit 
equal to a fourth of the circumference of the 
globe, providing for themselves as they went, 
driving before them forces many times the strength 
of their own, leaving law and order and justice in 
their wake, and returning with trophies taken on 
battle-fields whose names few Americans had ever 
heard before. It is a sad commentary on the 
gratitude of republics that the government never 
acknowledged, either by promotion, decoration, 
or the thanks of Congress, the invaluable services 
of Alexander Doniphan; there is no statue to him 
in any town or city of his State; not even a men- 
tion of his immortal expedition can be found in 
the school histories of the nation he served so 
well. He lived for forty years after his great 
march and lies buried under a granite shaft in 
the cemetery at Liberty, Mo. Though forgotten 
by his countrymen, the brown-faced folk below 

274 



The March of the One Thousand 

the Rio Grande still tell of the days when the 
great captain came riding down from the north 
to invade a nation at the head of a thousand 
men. 



275 



WHEN WE FOUGHT THE JAPANESE 



i 



WHEN WE FOUGHT THE JAPANESE 

". . . I met 'im all over the world, a-doin' all kinds 
of things, 
Like landin' 'isself with a Gatlin' gun to talk to 
them 'eathen kings. 

For there isn't a job on the top o' the earth the beggar 

don't know, nor do — 
You can leave 'im at night on a bald man's 'ead to 

paddle 'is own canoe." 

THERE you have a four-line epitome of the 
career and character of the burly, tousle- 
headed, grufF-voiced old sea-dog v^ho is the hero 
of this narrative. His name ? Matthew Cal- 
braith Perry, one time commodore in the navy 
of the United States and younger brother of that 
other Yankee sea-fighter, Oliver Hazard Perry, 
v^ithout whose picture, wrapped in the Chesa- 
peake's flag and standing in a dramatic attitude 
in the stern-sheets of a small boat, no school his- 
tory of the United States would be complete. 
Though Matthew did not have to depend upon 
the reflected glory of his famous brother, for he 
won glory enough of his own, his extraordinary 

279 



The Road to Glory 

exploits have never received the attention of which 
they are deserving, partly, no doubt, because they 
were obscured by the smoke of his brother's guns 
on Lake Erie and partly because they were per- 
formed at a period in our national history when 
the public mind was occupied with happenings 
nearer home. 

His father, a Yankee privateersman of the up- 
boys-and-at-'em school, was captured by a British 
cruiser during the Revolution and sent as a pris- 
oner of war to Ireland, where his captivity was made 
considerably more than endurable by a peaches- 
and-cream beauty from the County Down. After 
the war was over he returned to Ireland and gave 
a typical story-book ending to the romance by 
hunting up the girl who had cheered his prison 
hours and making her his wife. The dashing 
young skipper and his sixteen-year-old bride built 
themselves a house within sight of the shipping 
along the Newport wharfs, and there, when the 
eighteenth century lacked but half a dozen years 
of having run its course and when our flag bore 
but fifteen stars, Matthew was born. How many 
of the neighbors who came flocking in to admire 
the lusty youngster dreamed that he would live 
to command the largest fleet which, in his life- 
time, ever gathered under the folds of that flag 

280 



when We Fought the Japanese 

and that his exploits on the remotest seaboards 
of the world would make the wildest fiction seem 
probable and tame ? 

Young Perry was helping to make history at 
an age when most boys are still in school, for, 
as a midshipman of seventeen, he stood beside 
Commodore Rodgers when he lighted the fuse of 
the "Long Tom" in the forecastle battery of the 
frigate President and sent a ball crashing into the 
British war-ship Belvidera — the first shot fired in 
the War of 1812. In the same ship and under 
the same commander he scoured the seas of 
northern Europe in a commerce-destroying raid 
which extended from the English Channel to the 
Arctic, during which the daring American was 
hunted by twenty British men-of-war, sailing, for 
safety's sake, in pairs. As a young Heutenant in 
command of the Cyane he convoyed the first party 
of American negroes sent to West Africa to estab- 
lish, under the name of Liberia, a country of their 
own. It was on this voyage that the character 
of the man who, in later years, was to revolution- 
ize the commerce of the world first evidenced 
itself. Putting into Teneriffe, in the Canaries, 
for water and provisions. Perry, resplendent in 
"whites" and gold lace, went ashore to pay the 
Portuguese governor the customary call of cere- 

281 



The Road to Glory 

mony. As he was taking leave of the governor 
he casually remarked that the Cyane, on leaving 
the harbor, would, of course, fire the usual salute. 
Whereupon the Portuguese official, a pompous 
royalist who had a deep-seated aversion to repub- 
lican institutions and went out of his way to 
show his contempt for them, told the young com- 
mander that the shore batteries would return the 
salute less one gun, for, as he impudently remarked, 
Portugal considered herself superior to republics 
and could not treat them as equals. Perry, white 
with anger, told the governor that the nation 
which he had the honor to serve was the equal 
of any monarchy on earth, and that unless he 
received an assurance that his salute would be 
returned gun for gun, he would fire no salute at 
all. That afternoon the Cyane sailed past the bat- 
teries, over which flew the Portuguese flag, in a 
silence which unmistakably spelled contempt. 
Though personally Perry was the most peaceable 
of men, as the representative of the United States 
in distant oceans he perpetually carried a chip on 
his shoulder and defied any one to knock it ofi^. 
A cannibal king tried it once, and — but of that 
you shall hear a little later. 

A year or so after he had landed his party of 
negro colonists he visited the coast of cannibals 

282 



when We Fought the Japanese 

and fevers again and at the mouth of the Mesu- 
rado River chose the site of the future capital 
of Liberia, which was named Monrovia in honor 
of President Monroe, thus estabUshing the first 
and only colony ever founded by the United 
States. His next commission was to wipe out 
the pirates who, shielding themselves under the 
flags of the new South American republics and 
assuming the thin disguise of privateersmen, were 
terrorizing commerce upon the Spanish main. 
Under Commodore David Porter he spent eight 
months under sail upon the Gulf, and when he 
at last turned his bowsprit toward the north, 
he had put an end to the depredations of the 
"dago robbers,'* as his seamen called them. It 
was here, in fact, that the term "dago" as ap- 
plied by Americans to foreigners of the Latin 
race began. The name of James, the Spaniards' 
patron saint, has been indiscriminately bestowed, 
in its Spanish form, lago, upon provinces, islands, 
towns, and rivers from one end of Spanish Amer- 
ica to the other, Santiago, San Diego, lago, and 
Diego being such constantly recurring names that 
the American sailors early fell into the custom of 
calling the natives of these parts "Diegos" or 
"dago men," whence the slang term so univer- 
sally used to-day. 

283 



The Road to Glory 

About the time that the United States was 
celebrating its fiftieth birthday the government 
at Washington, thinking it high time to give the 
Europeans an object-lesson in the naval power of 
the oversea republic, ordered a squadron of war- 
ships to the Mediterranean, in many of whose 
ports the American flag was as unfamiHar as 
China's dragon banner. The command of the ex- 
pedition was given to Commodore Rodgers, who 
hoisted his pennant on the North Carolina, the 
finest and most formidable craft that had yet 
been launched from an American shipyard, and 
Perry went along as executive officer to his old 
chief. When the great ship, with the grim muz- 
zles of her one hundred and two guns peering 
from her three tiers of port-holes, majestically en- 
tered the European harbors under her cloud of 
snowy canvas, the natives were goggle-eyed with 
admiration and amazement, for in those days most 
Europeans thought of America — when they gave 
it any thought at all — as a land of Indians, grizzly 
bears, and buckskin-clad frontiersmen. As execu- 
tive officer. Perry's duties comprised pretty much 
everything which needed to be done on deck. 
Whether in cocked hat and gold epaulets by 
day or in oilskins and sou'wester at night, he 
was regent of the ship and crew. The duties of 

284 



when We Fought the Japanese 

the squadron were not confined to visits of cere- 
mony, either, for one of the objects for which it 
had been sent was to teach the pirates who in- 
fested Levantine waters that it was as dangerous 
to molest vessels flying the American flag as to .,^A 
tamper with a stick of dynamite. During the 
Greek struggle for independence, which was then 
in progress, the Greek privateers had on more 
than one occasion been a trifle careless in diff*er- 
entiating between the vessels of neutral nations 
and those of their Turkish oppressors, and in 
May, 1825, they committed a particularly bad 
error of judgment by seizing a merchant ship 
from Boston. In those days the administration 
at Washington was as quick to resent such af- 
fronts as it is tardy nowadays, and no sooner had 
the American squadron arrived in Levantine 
waters than it sought an opportunity to teach 
the Greeks a lesson. An opportunity soon pre- 
sented itself. Learning that a British merchant- 
man, the Comet, had been seized by the Greeks, 
Rodgers ordered her to be recaptured and sent a 
boarding party of bluejackets and marines to do 
the business. Swarming up the bow-chains, the 
Americans gained the deck before the pirates 
reaKzed just what was happening, though the 
ship was not taken without a desperate hand-to- 

285 



The Road to Glory 

hand struggle, in which Lieutenant Carr, singHng 
out the pirate chief, killed him with his own hand. 
Thenceforward the Greeks, whenever they saw a 
vessel flying the stars and stripes, touched their 
hats, figuratively speaking. The North Carolina s 
mission thus having been accomplished, in the 
spring of 1827 Perry ordered the boatswain to 
sound the welcome call: "All hands up anchor 
for home." 

So well had Perry performed his exacting duties 
that when the Concord, of eighteen guns, was 
completed, two years later, he was given com- 
mand of her and instructed to carry our envoy, 
John Randolph, of Roanoke, to Russia. While 
lying in the harbor of Cronstadt the Concord was 
visited by Czar Nicholas I — the first Russian 
sovereign to set foot on the deck-planks of an 
American war-ship. He was so pleased with what 
he saw that he invited Perry to a private audi- 
ence, during which the young American naval 
oflacer and the Great White Czar chatted and 
smoked with all the informality of old friends. 
Before the interview was over the ruler of all the 
Russias offered Perry an admiral's commission in 
the Russian service, but the latter, recalling, no 
doubt, the unfortunate experience of his great 
countryman, John Paul Jones, while admiral in 

286 



When We Fought the Japanese 

the navy of Czar Nicholas's grandmother, the 
Empress Catherine, decHned the flattering offer. 
The Yankee sailorman's next experience with the 
Lord's anointed was on the other side of Europe. 
Acting under instructions to leave the visiting 
cards of the United States at every port of im- 
portance in the Old World — for nations are just 
as punctilious about paying and returning calls as 
society women — Perry dropped anchor one fine 
spring morning in the harbor of Alexandria. In- 
vited to dine at Ras-el-Tin Palace with Mohammed 
Ali, the founder of the Khedival dynasty, the 
briUiancy and efficiency of the young American 
impressed the conqueror of the Sudan as much 
as they had the conqueror of Poland, and when 
Perry and his officers left they took with them, 
as presents from the Khedive, thirteen gold- 
mounted, jewel-incrusted swords, from which, by 
the way, was adopted the "Mameluke grip'' now 
used in our navy. 

When Andrew Jackson sat himself down In the 
White House, in 1829, he promptly inaugurated 
the same straight-from-the-shoulder-smash-bang 
foreign policy which had characterized him as a 
soldier and used the navy to back up his policy. 
During the period from 1809 to 1812 the Nea- 
politan Government, first under Joseph Bona- 

287 



The Road to Glory 

parte and then under Joachim Murat, had, under 
the terms of Napoleon's universal embargo, con- 
fiscated numerous American ships and cargoes, 
the claims filed with the State Department in 
Washington aggregating upward of one million 
seven hundred thousand dollars. No sooner had 
Jackson taken his oath of office, therefore, than 
he appointed John Nelson minister to the king- 
dom of Naples and ordered him to collect these 
claims. And in order that the Neapohtans, who 
were an evasive lot and kissed every coin good-by 
before parting with it, might be convinced that 
the United States meant business. Commodore 
John Patterson — the same who had aided Jack- 
son in the defense of New Orleans — was given a 
squadron of half a dozen war-ships and instructed 
to back up the minister's demands by the menace 
of his guns. The force at Patterson's disposal 
consisted of three fifty-gun frigates and three 
twenty-gun corvettes, which sufficed, according 
to the plan evolved by the commodore, for a 
naval drama in six acts. Almost at the moment 
of sailing the commander of the Brandywine was 
taken ill, and our friend Perry was ordered to 
replace him. (Did you ever hear of such a per- 
sistent run of luck .?) Now, of all the Americans 
who visit Naples each year, I very much doubt 

288 



When We Fought the Japanese 

if there is one in a hundred thousand who is 
aware that an American war fleet once lay in that 
lovely harbor and threatened — in diplomatic lan- 
guage, of course — to blow that charming city off 
the map if a little account which it had come to 
collect was not paid then and there. When Min- 
ister Nelson went ashore in the Brandywine' s gig, 
called upon the Neapolitan minister of state, Count 
Cassaro, and intimated that the United States 
would appreciate an immediate settlement of its 
account, which was long overdue, the wily Nea- 
politan almost laughed in his face. Why should 
the government of Ferdinand II, notorious for its 
corruption at home, pay any attention to the de- 
mands of an almost unknown republic five thou- 
sand miles away ? The very idea was laughable, 
preposterous, absurd. No ! the Yankee envoy, 
with but a soHtary war-ship to back him up, 
would not get a single soldo. Very well, said 
Minister Nelson, the climate was pleasant and 
the Neapolitan Government might shortly change 
its mind — in fact he thought that it undoubtedly 
would — and he would hang around. So Perry 
dropped the Brandywine^s anchor under the 
shadow of Capadimonte, and he and Minister Nel- 
son smoked and chatted contentedly enough in the 
pleasant shade of the awnings. Three days later 

289 



The Road to Glory 

another floating fortress, black guns peering from 
her ports and a flag of stripes and stars trailing 
from her stern, sailed majestically up the bay. 
It was the frigate United States. Again Minister 
Nelson called on Count Cassaro, and again his 
request was refused, but this time a shade less 
curtly. Nor did King Bomba, in his palace on 
the hill, laugh quite so loudly. Four days slipped 
away and splash went the anchor of the Concord 
alongside her sisters. King Bomba began to look 
anxious, and his minister was plainly worried, but 
still the money remained unpaid. Two days later 
the John Adams came sweeping into the harbor 
under a cloud of snowy canvas and hove to so 
as to bring her broadside to bear upon the city — 
whereupon Count Cassaro sent hurriedly for some 
local bankers. When the fifth ship sailed in, the 
city was agog with excitement, and the Neapoli- 
tans had almost reached the point of being hon- 
est — but not quite. But the report that a sixth 
ship was entering the harbor brought the desired 
result, for Count Cassaro called for his carriage, 
hastened to the American envoy, and asked him 
whether he would prefer the money in drafts or 
cash. 

Though the next ten years of Perry's life were 
spent on shore duty, as the result of the extraor- 

290 



When We Fought the Japanese 

dinary work he performed during that compara- 
tively brief time, he came to be known as "the 
educator of the navy.'* In those ten years he 
founded the Brooklyn Naval Lyceum; com- 
manded the Fulton^ the first American war vessel 
independent of wind and tide; discovered the 
value of the ram as a weapon of offense and 
thereby changed the tactics of sea-fights from 
"broadside to broadside" to "prow on"; revolu- 
tionized the naval architecture of the world; mod- 
ernized the lighthouse system along our coasts; 
substituted the use of shells for solid shot in our 
navy; and estabHshed the School of Gun Practice 
at Sandy Hook. Any one of these was an achieve- 
ment of which a man would have good reason to 
be proud. Any one of them was a service which 
merited the appreciation of the nation. In 1840 
he was rewarded with the rank of commodore, 
and thenceforward the vessel that carried him 
flew the "broad pennant." Yet all of his later 
illustrious services under the red, the white, and 
the blue pennants added nothing to his pay, per- 
manent rank, or government reward, for until 
the year 1862 there was no office in the American 
navy carrying higher pay than that of captain. 

As a result of the Webster-Ashburton treaty, 
whereby England and the United States bound 

291 



The Road to Glory 

themselves to suppress the slave-trade, Perry was 
given command of an eighty-gun squadron, and 
in 1842 was ordered to the west coast of Africa 
for the purpose of stamping out the traffic in 
"black ivory" and, incidentally, to protect the 
negro colony he had established in Liberia a 
quarter of a century before from the aggressions 
of the native rulers. Though the framers of the 
treaty were unquestionably sincere in their desire 
to stamp out the traffic in human beings, and 
though both the British and American navies 
made every effort to enforce it, these efforts were 
nullified by the fact that for a number of years 
the courts of England and the United States re- 
fused to convict a slaver unless captured with the 
slaves actually on board. The absurdity — and 
tragedy — of this ruling was emphasized by the 
case of the slaver Brilliante. On one of her dashes 
from the west coast of Africa to the Gulf coast 
of the United States her captain found himself 
becalmed and surrounded by four war-ships. 
Aware that he would certainly be boarded unless 
the wind quickly rose, he stretched his entire 
cable chain on deck, suspended it clear of every- 
thing, and shackled to it his anchor, which hung 
on the bow ready to drop. To this chain he 
lashed the six hundred slaves he had aboard. He 

292 



When We Fought the Japanese 

waited until he could hear the oars of the board- 
ing parties close at hand — then he cut the anchor. 
As it fell it dragged overboard the cable with its 
human freight, and though the men-of-war's men 
heard the shrieks of the victims and found their 
fetters lying on the deck, the fact remained that 
there were no slaves aboard; so, in conformity 
with the rulings of the learned judges in Wash- 
ington and London, there was nothing left for 
the boarders but to depart amid the jeers of the 
slaver's captain and crew. 

Upon reaching the west coast, known then, 
as now, as *'the white man's graveyard," the first 
thing to which Perry turned his attention was the 
settlement of an outstanding score with the tribes- 
men of Berribee, who inhabited that region which 
now comprises the French Ivory Coast. A few 
months prior to his visit the untutored savages 
of this coast of death had enticed ashore the cap- 
tain and crew of the American schooner Mary 
Carver and, after unspeakable tortures, had mur- 
dered them. For three hours Captain Carver was 
subjected to torments almost incredible in the 
fiendish ingenuity they displayed, finally, when 
all but dead, being bound and turned over to 
the women and children of the tribe, who amused 
themselves by sticking thorns into his flesh until 

293 



The Road to Glory 

he was a human pincushion. Then they cooked 
and ate him. It was with uneasy consciences, 
therefore, that the natives saw four great black 
ships, flying the same strange flag that they had 
taken from the Mary Carver, drop anchor ofF 
Berribee one red-hot November morning. 

Commodore Perry sent a message to the King, 
who bore the pleasing name of Crack-0, that it 
would be better for his health as well as for that 
of the white men trading along the coast if he 
moved his capital a considerable distance inland. 
The ebony monarch sent back the suggestion that 
the matter be thrashed out at a palaver to be held 
in the royal kraal two days later. On the morning 
appointed Commodore Perry, with twelve boat- 
loads of sailors and marines, landed with consid- 
erable difficulty through the booming surf and, 
escorted by fifty natives armed with rusty mus- 
kets of an obsolete pattern, marched through the 
jungle to the palaver house. As he entered the 
town it did not escape the keen eye of the Ameri- 
can commander that there was a noticeable ab- 
sence of natives to greet him; he guessed, and 
rightly, that the warriors were in ambush and 
that the women and children had taken to the 
bush. So, before entering the palaver house, he 
took the precaution of posting sentries at the 

294 



When We Fought the Japanese 

gates of the stockade and of drawing up his men 
close by with orders to break into the kraal if 
they heard a disturbance. Then he strode into 
the presence of King Crack-0, and two strong men 
stood face to face. The African ruler was a gi- 
gantic negro with a face as ugly as sin and the 
frame of a prize-fighter, his tremendous muscles 
playing like snakes under a skin made shiny with 
cocoanut oil. Flung over his massive shoulders 
was the royal robe of red and yellow, and tilted 
rakishly on his fuzzy skull was a dilapidated top- 
hat — the emblem of royalty throughout native 
Africa. Behind him, leaning against the wall and 
within easy reach, was his trowel-bladed spear, a 
vicious weapon with a six-foot shaft which, in the 
hands of a man who knew how to use it, could 
be driven through a three-inch plank. Twelve 
notches on its haft told their own grim story. 
Taking him by and large, he was a mighty formi- 
dable figure, was his Majesty King Crack-0 of 
Berribee, though the American commodore, who 
stood six feet two in his stockings and was built 
in proportion, was not exactly puny himself. As 
the Berribee tongue was not included in the re- 
markable list of languages of which Perry had 
made himself master, and as King Crack-0*s 
knowledge of English was confined to such odds 

295 



The Road to Glory 

and ends of profanity as he had picked up from 
seamen and traders, a voluble African named 
Yellow Will, who proved himself a most impu- 
dent and barefaced liar, did the Interpreting. It 
was the Interpreter, in fact, who precipitated the 
shindy, for his attitude quickly became so inso- 
lent that Perry, who was a short-tempered man 
under the best of circumstances, shook his fist 
under his nose and thundered that he would either 
speak the truth or get a flogging. Terrified by 
the violence of the explosion, the interpreter 
bolted for the gate, and the sentry, who believed 
in acting first and inquiring afterward, levelled 
his rifle and shot him dead. Instantly the royal 
enclosure was in an uproar. King Crack-0 
snatched at his spear, but, quick as the big 
black was, the American commodore was quicker. 
Perry, who, despite his size, was as quick on his 
feet as a professional boxer, hurled himself upon 
Crack-0 before he could get to his weapon and 
caught him by the throat, while a sergeant of 
marines, who had burst in at sound of the scufile, 
shot the King through the body. Though mor- 
tally wounded, the negro ruler fought with the 
ferocity of a gorilla, again and again hurling off 
the half dozen sailors who attempted to make him 
prisoner, being subdued only when a marine 
brought a rifle barrel down on his head and 

296 



when We Fought the Japanese 

stretched him senseless. The forest encircling the 
royal kraal was by this time vomiting armed and 
yelling warriors, who opened fire with their anti- 
quated muskets, a compliment which the blue- 
jackets and marines returned with deadly effect. 
Bound hand and foot, the wounded King was 
taken out to the flag-ship, where he died the next 
morning. Before departing, the sailors touched a 
match to his mud-and-wattle capital, though not 
before they had recovered the flag taken from 
the ill-fated Alary Carver, and in twenty minutes 
the town was a heap of smoking ashes. Moving 
slowly down the coast. Perry landed punitive ex- 
peditions at every village of importance, drove 
back the tribesmen, destroyed their crops, con- 
fiscated their cattle, and burned their towns. 
News travels in Africa by the "underground rail- 
way" as though by wireless, and the effect of this 
powder-and-ball policy was quickly felt along a 
thousand miles of coast, the tribal chieftains hast- 
ening in, under flags of truce, "to talk one big 
palaver, to pay plenty bullock, to no more fight 
white man." Thus was concluded one of those 
"little wars" which have done so much to make 
the red-white-and-blue flag respected at the utter- 
most ends of the earth, but of which our people 
seldom hear. 

In 1846 came the war with Mexico and with it 

297 



The Road to Glory 

still another opportunity for Perry to add to his 
reputation. Opportunity seemed, indeed, to be 
forever hammering at his door — and he never let 
the elusive jade escape him. When Scott found 
that his artillery was unable to effect a breach in 
the walls of Vera Cruz, he asked Perry, who was 
in charge of the naval operations in the Gulf, for 
the loan of some heavy ordnance from the fleet, 
saying that his soldiers would do the handling. 
"Where the guns go the men go, too," responded 
Perry — and they did. Landing the great guns 
from his war-ships, he manned them with his own 
crews, pushed them up to within eight hundred 
yards of the Mexican fortifications, and hammered 
them to pieces with an efficiency and despatch 
which amazed the army officers, who had never 
taken the sailor into consideration as a fighting 
factor on land. It was Perry's guns, served by 
the bluejackets he had trained and aimed by of- 
ficers who had learned their business at the School 
of Gun Practice he had founded, which opened a 
gate through the walls of Vera Cruz for Scott's 
triumphant advance on the Mexican capital. 

Perry had long advocated the value of sailors 
trained as infantry, and this campaign gave him 
an opportunity to show his critics that he knew 
what he was talking about. Forming the first 

298 



When We Fought the Japanese 

American naval brigade ever organized, he moved 
slowly down the Gulf coast, landing and captur- 
ing every town he came to, until the whole lit- 
toral from the Rio Grande to Yucatan was in his 
possession. At the taking of Tabasco — now 
known as San Juan Bautista — the novel sight 
was presented of the commander-in-chief of the 
American naval forces leading the landing parties 
in person. The capital of the state of Tabasco 
lies in the heart of the rubber country, some 
seventy miles up the Tabasco River, and only 
eighteen degrees above the equator. The expedi- 
tion against it consisted of forty boats, convey- 
ing eleven hundred men. This was new work for 
American sailors, for up to that time our naval 
traditions consisted of squadron fights in line, 
ship-to-ship duels and boarding parties. In this 
case, however, a flotilla was to ascend a narrow 
and tortuous river for seventy miles through a 
densely wooded region, which afforded continu- 
ous cover for riflemen, and then to disembark 
and attack heavy shore batteries defended by a 
force many times the strength of their own. As 
the long line of boats reached the hairpin turn in 
the river known as the DeviFs Bend, the dense 
jungle which lined both sides of the stream sud- 
denly blazed with musketry and the boats were 

299 



The Road to Glory 

swept with a rain of lead. Perry, who was stand- 
ing in an exposed position under the awnings of 
the leading boat, his field-glasses glued to his eyes, 
escaped death by the breadth of a hair. As the 
spurts of flame and smoke leaped from the wall 
of shrubbery he roared the order, "Fire at will !" 
and the fusillade of small arms that ensued rid- 
dled the jungle and effectually put to flight the 
Mexicans. 

When within a few miles of the town it was 
found that the Mexicans had placed obstructions 
in the channel in such a manner that they would 
have to be blown up before the boats could pass. 
And for this Perry would not wait. Directing the 
gunners to sweep the beach with grape, he gave 
the order: "Prepare to land!" He himself took 
the tiller of the leading boat. Reaching the line 
of obstructions in the river, he suddenly steered 
straight for the shore and, rising in his boat, 
called in a voice which echoed over river and 
jungle: "Three cheers, my lads, and give way 
all !" Responding with three thunderous hurrahs, 
the sailors bent to their oars and raced toward 
the shore as the college eights race down the river 
at Poughkeepsie. Perry was the first to land. 
Followed by his flag-captain and his aides, he 
dashed up the almost perpendicular bank in the 

300 



when We Fought the Japanese 

face of a scattering rifle fire and unfurled his 
broad pennant in sight of the whole line of boats. 
Quickly the marines and sailors landed and cleared^ 
the underbrush of snipers. Then, with a cloud of 
skirmishers thrown out on either flank, a com- 
pany of pioneers in advance to clear the road, and 
squads of bluejackets marching fan-fashion, drag- 
ging their field-pieces behind them, the column 
moved on Tabasco with the burly commodore 
tramping at its head. The thermometer — for it 
was in June — stood at 130 degrees in the shade — 
and there was no shade. Man after man fainted 
from heat and exhaustion. Miasma rose in clouds 
from the jungle. The pitiless sun beat down from 
a sky of brass. The country was so swampy that 
the pioneers had to fell trees and build bridges 
before the column could advance. Every few 
minutes a gun would sink to the hubs in quick- 
sand and a whole company would have to man 
the drag-ropes and haul it out. This overland 
march, through a roadless and pestilential jungle, 
was one of the most remarkable exploits and 
certainly one of the least known of the entire 
war. 

The flotilla left in the river had, meanwhile, 
succeeded in blowing up the obstructions and, 
moving up the stream, shelled the Mexican for- 

301 



The Road to Glory 

tifications from the rear while Perry and his 
sweating men prepared to carry them by storm. 
Waiting until the straggling column closed up 
and the men had a few moments in which to 
rest, Perry formed his command into "company 
front/' and signalled to his bugler. As the brazen 
strains of the "charge" pealed out the line of 
sweating, panting, cheering men, led by the griz- 
zled commodore himself, pistol in one hand and 
cutlass in the other, swept at a run up the steep 
main street of the city with the ships' bands 
playing them into action with "Yankee Doodle." 
In five minutes it was all over but the shouting. 
The Mexican garrison had fled, and our flag waved 
in triumph over the city which gave the sauce its 
name. The capture of Tabasco, whose commer- 
cial importance was second only to that of Vera 
Cruz, was the last important naval operation of 
the war. Since the fall of Vera Cruz, Perry and 
his jack-tars had captured six fortress-defended 
cities, had taken ninety-three pieces of artillery, 
had forced neutrality on the great, rich province 
of Yucatan, had established an American customs 
service at each of the captured ports, and had 
found time in between to build a naval hospital 
on the island of Salmadina, which saved hundreds 
of lives. And yet but few of our people are aware 

302 



When We Fought the Japanese 

that Matthew Perry even took part in the war 
with Mexico. 

Perry's service in Russia, Egypt, Italy, Africa, 
the West Indies, and Mexico was, however, but 
a preparatory course for the great adventure on 
which he was destined to embark, for, as a result 
of the extraordinary fund of experience and in- 
formation he had gained on foreign seaboards, he 
was selected to command the expedition which 
the American Government had determined to 
send to Japan in an attempt to open up that 
empire to commerce and civiUzation. Now, you 
must not lose sight of the fact that the Japan of 
sixty years ago was quite a different country from 
the Japan of to-day. The Japanese of 1853 were 
as ultra-exclusive and as pleased with themselves 
as are the members of the Newport set. They 
wanted no outsiders in their country, and they 
did not have the slightest desire to play in any 
one else's back yard. All they asked was to be 
let alone. But no nation can successfully oppose 
the march of civilization. It must either welcome 
progress or go under. For three centuries every 
maritime power in Europe had attempted to open 
up Japan, and always they had met with failure. 
But about the middle of the nineteenth century 
the United States decided to take a hand in the 

303 



The Road to Glory 

game. With the conquest and settlement of Cal- 
ifornia; the increase of American commerce with 
China; the growth of American whale-fisheries in 
Eastern seas, in which ten thousand Americans 
were employed; the development of steam traffic 
and the consequent necessity for coaling stations, 
it became increasingly evident to the frock-coated 
gentlemen in Washington that the opening of the 
empire of the Mikado was a necessity which could 
not much longer be delayed. 

Thus it came about that the morning of July 7, 
1853, saw a squadron of black-hulled war-ships — 
the Mississippi, Susquehanna, Plymouth, and Sara- 
toga — sailing into the Straits of Uraga and into 
Japanese history. And on the bridge of the flag- 
ship, his telescope glued to his eye, was our old 
friend, Matthew Calbraith Perry. The Straits of 
Uraga, I should explain, form the entrance to the 
Bay of Tokio, whose sacred waters had, up to 
that time, never been desecrated by the hulls of 
foreign war-ships. But Perry was never worried 
about lack of precedent. At five in the after- 
noon his ships steamed in within musket-shot of 
Uraga, and, at the shrill signal of the boatswains' 
pipes, their anchors went rumbling down. A mo- 
ment later a string of signal-flags fluttered from 
the flag-ship in a message which read: "Have no 

304 



When We Fought the Japanese 

communication with the shore, have none from 
the shore." Perry, you see, had spent the three 
preceding years in preparing for this expedition 
by learning all that he could of the Japanese char- 
acter and customs, and he had not spent them 
for naught. He had determined that, when it 
came to being really snobbish and exclusive, he 
would make the Japanese, who had theretofore 
held the record for that sort of thing, look like 
amateurs. And he did. For when the captain 
of the port, in his ceremonial dress of hempen 
cloth and lacquered hat, put off in a twelve-oared 
barge to inquire the business of the strangers, a 
marine sentry at the top of the flag-ship's ladder 
brusquely motioned him away as though he were 
of no more importance than a tramp. Then came 
the vice-governor, flying the trefoil flag and with 
an escort of armored spearmen, but he met with 
no more consideration than the port-captain. The 
American ships were about as hospitable as so 
many icebergs. Indeed, it was not until he had 
explained that the governor was prohibited by 
law from boarding a foreign vessel that the vice- 
governor was permitted to set foot on the sacred 
deck planks of the flag-ship. Even then he was 
not permitted to see the mighty and illustrious 
excellency who was in command of the squadron; 

305 



The Road to Glory 

no, indeed. As befitted his inferior rank, he was 
received by a very stiff, very haughty, very con- 
descending young Heutenant who interrupted the 
flowery address of the dazed official by telUng 
him that the Americans considered themselves 
affronted by the filthy shore boats which hov- 
ered about them, and that if they did not depart 
instantly they would be fired on. After the vice- 
governor had gone to the rail and motioned the 
inquisitive boats away, the lieutenant informed 
him that the illustrious commander of the mighty 
squadron bore an autograph letter from his Ex- 
cellency the President of the United States to the 
Mikado, and that he proposed to steam up to 
Tokio and deliver it in person. When the vice- 
governor heard this he nearly fainted. For a 
fleet of barbarian warships to anchor off the 
sacred city, the capital of the empire, the re- 
sidence of the son of heaven, was impossible, 
unthinkable, sacrilegious. The very thought of 
it paralyzed him with fear. When he carried the 
news of what the Americans proposed doing to 
the governor, that official changed his mind about 
the illegality of his setting foot on a foreign ship, 
and the following morning, with a retinue which 
looked like the chorus of a comic opera, he went 
in state to the flag-ship to expostulate. But the 

306 



when We Fought the Japanese 

commodore refused to see the governor, just as 
he had refused to see his subordinate, and that 
crestfallen official, his feelings sadly ruffled, was 
forced to content himself with a brief conversa- 
tion with Commander Buchanan, who told him 
that, unless arrangements were made at once for 
delivering the President's letter to a direct repre- 
sentative of the Mikado, Commodore Perry was 
unalterably determined on steaming up to Tokio 
and delivering the letter to the Emperor himself. 
From beginning to end of the interview, the Amer- 
ican officer, who, I expect, enjoyed the perform- 
ance hugely, resented the slightest lack of cere- 
mony on the governor's part and did not hesitate 
to give evidence of his displeasure when that be- 
deviled official omitted anything which the Ameri- 
can thought he ought to do. At length the now 
deeply impressed Japanese agreed to despatch a 
messenger to Tokio for further instructions, and 
to this the Americans, with feigned reluctance, 
agreed, adding, however, that if an answer was 
not received within three days they would move 
up to the capital and learn the reason why. 

The appearance of American war-ships in the 
Bay of Tokio was a mighty shock to the Japa- 
nese. What right had a foreign nation to impose 
on them a commerce which they did not want; 

307 



The Road to Glory 

a friendship which they did not seek ? The alarm- 
bells clanged throughout the empire. Messengers 
on reeking horses tore through every town spread- 
ing the astounding news. Spears were sharpened, 
and ancient armor was dragged from dusty chests. 
Night and day could be heard the clangor of the 
smiths forging weapons of war. Away with the 
barbarians! To arms ! Jhoi! Jhoi! Buddhists 
wore away their rosaries invoking Kartikiya, the 
god of war, and Shinto priests fasted while they 
called on the sea and the storm to destroy the 
impious invaders of the Nipponese motherland. 
The hidebound formality of untold centuries was 
swept away in this hour of common danger, and 
for the first time in Japanese history high and 
low alike were invited to offer suggestions as to 
what steps should be taken for the protection of 
the nation and the preservation of the national 
honor. It didn't take the wiseheads long, how- 
ever, to decide that compliance was better than 
defiance; so, on the last of the three days of grace 
granted by the Americans, the governor in his 
gorgeous robes of office once more boarded the 
Susquehanna and, with many genuflections, in- 
formed the officer designated to meet him that 
the letter from the President would be received 
a few days later, with all the pomp and ceremony 

308 



when We Fought the Japanese 

which the Imperial Government knew how to 
command, in a pavilion which would be erected 
on the beach near Uraga for the purpose, by two 
peers of the empire who had been designated by 
the Mikado as his personal representatives. / 

On the morning of July 14 the squadron weighed 
anchor and moved up so as to command the place 
where the ceremony was to be held. Carpenters, 
mat makers, tapestry hangers, and decorators sent 
from the capital had been working night and day, 
and under their skilful hands a great pavilion, 
as though by the wave of a magician's wand, 
had sprung up on the beach. When all was in 
readiness the governor and his suite, their silken 
costumes ablaze with gold embroidery, pulled out 
to the flag-ship to escort the commodore to the 
shore. As the Japanese stepped aboard, a signal 
called fifteen launches and cutters from the other 
ships of the squadron to the side of the Susque- 
hanna. Officers, bluejackets, and marines in all 
the glory of full dress piled into them, and, led 
by Commander Buchanan's gig, they headed for 
the shore, the oars of the American sailors rising 
and falling in beautiful unison. As the proces- 
sion of boats drew out to its full length, the 
bright flags, the gorgeous banners, the barbaric 
costumes of the Japanese, the leather shakoes of 

309 



The Road to Glory 

the marines, and the scarlet tunics of the bands- 
men, with the turquoise sea for a foreground and 
the great white cone of Fujiyama rising up behind, 
combined to form a never-to-be-forgotten picture. 
When the boats were half-way to the landing 
stage, a flourish of bugles sounded from the 
flag-ship, the marine guard presented arms, and 
Commodore Perry, resplendent in cocked hat and 
gold-laced uniform, attended by side boys and fol- 
lowed by a glittering staff", descended the gangway 
and entered his barge, while the Susquehanna s 
guns roared out a salute. On the shore a guard of 
honor composed of American sailors and marines 
was drawn up to receive him. As he set foot on 
the soil of Japan the troops presented arms, the 
officers saluted, the drums gave the three ruflfles, 
the band burst into the American anthem, and 
the colors swept the ground. Nothing had been 
left undone which would be likely to impress 
the ceremony-loving Japanese, and the eff*ect pro- 
duced was spectacular enough to have satisfied 
P. T. Barnum. The land procession was formed 
with the same attention to ceremonial and display. 
First came a hundred marines in the picturesque 
uniform of the period, marching with mechanical 
precision; after them came a hundred bluejackets 
with the roll of the sea in their gait, while at the 

310 



When We Fought the Japanese 

head of the column was a marine band, ablaze 
with gold and scarlet. Behind the bluejackets 
walked Commodore Perry, guarded by two gi- 
gantic negroes — veritable Jack Johnsons in phy- 
sique and stature — preceded by two ship's boys 
bearing the mahogany caskets containing Perry's 
credentials and the President's letter, the dehv- 
ery of which was the reason for all this extraor- 
dinary display. 

As the glittering procession entered the pavilion 
;> the two counsellors of the empire who had been 
designated by the Mikado to receive the letter 
rose and stood in silence. When the governor of 
Uraga, acting as master of ceremonies, intimated 
that all was ready, the two boys advanced and 
handed their caskets to the negroes. These, open- 
ing in succession the rosewood caskets and the 
envelopes of scarlet cloth, displayed the presi- 
dential letter and its accompanying credentials — 
impressive documents Written on vellum, bound 
in blue velvet, and fringed with seals of gold. 
Upon the master of ceremonies announcing that 
the imperial high commissioners were ready to 
receive the letter, the negroes returned the im- 
posing documents to the boys, who slowly ad- 
vanced the length of the hall and deposited them 
in a box of scarlet lacquer which had been brought 

311 



The Road to Glory 

from Tokio for the purpose. Again a frozen 
silence pervaded the assemblage. Then Perry, 
speaking through an interpreter, paid his respects 
to the immobile functionaries and announced that 
he would return for an answer to the letter in 
the following spring. When some of the officials 
anxiously inquired if he would come with all four 
ships, he sententiously replied: "With many 



more." 



Although he had announced that he would 
not revisit Japan until the spring, when Perry 
learned that the French and Russians were hast- 
ily preparing expeditions to be sent to Tokio for 
the purpose of counteracting American influence, 
he decided to advance the date of his return, en- 
tering the Bay of Tokio for the second time on 
February 12, 1854, thus getting ahead of his Eu- 
ropean rivals. This time he had with him a 
really imposing armada: the Susquehanna, Mis- 
sissippi, Powhatan, Macedonian, Southampton, Lex- 
ington, Vandalia, Plymouth, and Saratoga. On this 
occasion he refused to stop at Uraga and, much 
to the consternation of the Japanese, steamed 
steadily up the bay and anchored off Yokohama, 
within sight of the capital itself. The negotia- 
tions which ensued occupied several days, during 
which Perry insisted on the same pomp and cere- 

312 



when We Fought the Japanese 

mony, and took the same high-handed course that 
characterized his former visit. Noticing that the 
grounds surrounding the treaty house had been 
screened in by large mats, he inquired the reason, 
and upon being informed that it was done so that 
the Americans might not see the country, he said 
that he considered that the nation he represented 
was insulted and ordered that the screens in- 
stantly be removed. That was the sort of atti- 
tude that the Japanese understood, and thereafter 
they treated Perry with even more profound re- 
spect. The negotiations were brought to a con- 
clusion on the 31st of March, 1854, when the terms 
of the treaty whereby the empire of Japan was 
opened to American commerce were finally agreed 
upon. Thus was recorded one of the greatest 
diplomatic triumphs in our history. As Wash- 
ington Irving wrote to Commodore Perry: "You 
have gained for yourself a lasting name and have 
done it without shedding a drop of blood or in- 
flicting misery on a human being." ^ 

But Perry's accompUshment had a sequel, and a 
bloody one. The treaty which admitted the for- 
eigner precipitated civil war in Japan. Although 
for two hundred and fifty years the Japanese 
had been at peace and their sword-blades were 
rusty from lack of use, the embers of rebellion 

313 



The Road to Glory 

had long been smouldering, and the act that ad- 
mitted the alien served to fan them into the flame 
of open revolt. The trouble was that the tycoon 
— the viceroy, the mouthpiece of the Mikado, 
the power behind the throne — had become all- 
powerful, while the Mikado himself, as the result 
of a policy of seclusion that had been forced upon 
him, had become but a puppet, a figurehead. As 
the treaty with the United States had been signed 
under the authority of the tycoon, the rebels 
took up arms in a double-barrelled cause: to re- 
store the Mikado to his old-time authority and 
to expel the "hairy barbarians," as the foreigners 
were pleasantly called. The insurrectionists, who 
represented the powerful Choshiu and Satsuma 
clans, induced the Mikado to issue an edict set- 
ting June 25, 1863, as a date by which all for- 
eigners should be expelled from the empire. The 
tycoon, though bound to the United States and 
the European powers by the most solemn treaties, 
found himself helpless. He promptly sent in his 
resignation, but the Mikado, coerced by the re- 
bellious clansmen, refused to accept it and left 
the unhappy viceroy to wriggle out of the predic- 
ament as best he could. 

Meanwhile the leaders of the Choshiu clan 
seized and proceeded to fortify and mine the 

314 



When We Fought the Japanese 

Straits of Shimonosekl, the great highway of for- 
eign commerce forming the entrance to the inland 
sea, which at that point narrows down to a 
channel three miles in length and less than a 
mile in width, through which the tides run like 
a mill-race. On June 25, the eventful day fixed 
for the expulsion of the barbarians from the sa- 
cred dominions of the Mikado, the American mer- 
chant steamer Pembroke, with a pilot furnished 
by the Tokio government and with the Ameri- 
can flag at her peak, was on her way northward 
through the channel when she was fired on by the 
clansmen though, as luck would have it, was not hit. 
But peace which had existed in Japan for nearly 
two centuries and a half was broken. A few days 
later a French despatch-boat was hit in seven 
places, her boat's crew nearly all killed by a shell, 
and the vessel saved from sinking only by a 
lively use of the pumps. On July 11 a Dutch 
frigate was hit thirty-one times, and nine of its 
crew were killed or wounded, and a Httle later a 
French gunboat was badly hulled as she dashed 
past the batteries at full speed. It was evident 
that the Japanese had acquired modern guns in 
the ten years that had passed since Perry had 
taught them the blessings of civilization, and it was 
equally evident that they knew how to use them. 

31S 



The Road to Glory 

News is magnified as it travels in the East, and 
by the time word of the Pembroke incident reached 
Commander David McDougal, who was cruising 
in Chinese waters in the sloop of war Wyoming 
in pursuit of the Confederate privateer Alabama^ 
it had been exaggerated until he was led to be- 
lieve that the American vessel had been sunk 
with all hands. Though possessing neither a chart 
of the straits nor a map of the batteries, McDougal 
ordered his ship to be coaled and provisioned at 
full speed (and how the jackies worked when they 
got the order !), and on July i6, under a cloudless 
sky, without a breath of wind, and the sea as 
smooth as a tank of oil, the Wyoming^ her ports 
covered with tarpaulins so as to make her look 
like an unsuspecting merchantman, but with her 
crew at quarters and her decks cleared for ac- 
tion, came booming into Shimonoseki Straits. 
No sooner did she get within range of the bat- 
teries than the five eight-inch Dahlgren guns 
presented to Japan by the United States as 
a token of friendship, opened on her with a roar. 
It was not exactly a convincing proof of friend- 
ship. The Japanese batteries, splendidly handled, 
concentrated their fire on the narrowest part 
of the straits, which they swept with a hail of 
projectiles, while beyond, in more open water, 

316 



when We Fought the Japanese 

three heavily armed converted merchantmen — the 
steamer Lancefield, the bark Daniel Webster, and 
the brig Lanrick, all, oddly enough, American 
vessels which had been purchased by the clans- 
men for use against their former owners — lay di- 
rectly athwart the channel, prepared to dispute 
the Wyoming's passage, should she, by a miracle, 
succeed in getting past the batteries. As the first 
Japanese shell screamed angrily overhead, the tar- 
paulins concealing the Wyoming's guns disap- 
peared in a twinkling, the stars and stripes broke 
out at her masthead, and her artillery cut loose. 
It was a surprise party, right enough, but the sur- 
prise was on the Japanese. 

As McDougal approached the narrows, sweep- 
ing them with his field-glasses, his attention was 
caught by a line of stakes which, as he rightly 
suspected, had been placed there by the Japanese 
to gauge their fire. Accordingly, instead of tak- 
ing the middle of the channel, as denoted by the 
line of stakes, he ordered the Japanese pilot, who 
was paralyzed with terror, to run close under the 
batteries. It was well that he did so, for no 
sooner was the Wyoming within range than the 
Japanese gunners opened a cannonade which 
would have blown her out of the water had she 
been in mid-channel, where they confidently ex- 

317 



The Road to Glory 

pected her to be, but which, as it was, tore through 
her rigging without doing serious harm. There 
were six finished batteries, mounting in all thirty 
guns, and the three converted merchantmen car- 
ried eighteen pieces, making forty-eight cannon 
opposed to the Wyoming s six. 

Clearing the narrows, McDougal, despite the 
protestations of his pilot, who said that he would 
certainly go aground, gave orders to go in be- 
tween the sailing vessels and take the steamer. 
Just then a masked battery opened on the Wy- 
omingy but even in those days the fame of the 
American gunners was as wide as the seas, and 
they justified their reputation by placing a single 
shell so accurately that its explosion tore the whole 
battery to pieces. Then McDougal, signalling 
for "full steam ahead," dashed straight at the 
Daniel Webster, pouring in a broadside as he 
swept by which left her crowded decks a shambles. 
Then, opening on the Lanrick with his starboard 
guns, he fought the two ships at the same time, 
the action being at such close quarters that the 
guns of the opponents almost touched. In this, 
the first battle with modern weapons in which 
they had ever engaged, the Japanese showed the 
same indifference to death and the same remark- 
able ability as fighters and seamen which was to 

318 



When We Fought the Japanese 

bring about the defeat of the Russians half a 
century later. So rapidly did the crew of the 
Lanrick serve their guns that they managed to 
pour three broadsides into the Wyoming before 
the latter sent her to the bottom. The Lanrick 
thus rubbed off the slate, McDougal swept down 
upon the Lancefield, and oblivious of the terrific 
fire directed upon him by the Daniel Webster and 
the shore batteries, coolly manoeuvred for a fight- 
ing position. But during this manoeuvre the 
Wyoming went ashore while at the same moment 
the heavily manned Japanese steamer bore down 
with the evident intention of ramming and board- 
ing her while she was helpless in the mud. For a 
moment it looked as though the jig was up, and it 
flashed through the mind of every American 
that, before going into action, McDougal had 
given orders that the Wyoming was to be blown 
up with every man on board rather than fall into 
the hands of the enemy — for those were the days 
when the Japanese subjected their prisoners to 
the horrors of the thumb-screws, the dripping 
water, and the torture cage. But after a few 
hair-raising moments, during which every Ameri- 
can must have held his breath and murmured a 
little prayer, the powerful engines of the Wyo^ 
ming succeeded in pulling her off the sand-bar, 

319 



The Road to Glory 

whereupon, ignoring the bark of the batteries, 
McDougal manoeuvred in the terribly swift cur- 
rent until the American gunners could see the 
Lance field along the barrels of their eleven-inch 
pivot-guns. Then both Dahlgrens spoke to- 
gether. The accuracy of the American fire was 
appalling. The first two shells tore apertures as 
big as barn-doors in the Japanese vessel's hull, a 
third ripped through her at the water-line, passed 
through the boiler, tore out her sides, and burst far 
away in the town beyond. The frightful explo- 
sion which ensued was followed by a rain of ashes, 
timbers, ironwork, and fragments of human beings, 
and before the smoke had cleared the Lance- 
field had sunk from sight. It was now the Daniel 
Webster s turn, and in a few minutes the name- 
sake of the great statesman was shattered and 
sinking. The three vessels thus disposed of, the 
Wyoming was now free to turn her undivided at- 
tention to the shore batteries, her gunners plac- 
ing shell after shell with as unerring accuracy as 
Christy Mathewson puts his balls across the plate. 
Gun after gun was put out of action, battery after 
battery was silenced, until the whole line of for- 
tifications was a heap of ruins with dismounted 
cannon lying behind their wrecked embrasures 
and dead and wounded Japanese strewn every- 

320 



when We Fought the Japanese 

where. At twenty minutes past noon firing ceased. 
Then, his work accompKshed, McDougal turned 
his ship and steamed triumphantly the length of 
the straits while the hills of Japan echoed and 
re-echoed the hurrahs of the American sailors. 

In this extraordinary action, which lasted an 
hour and ten minutes, the Wyoming was hulled 
ten times, her funnel had six holes in it, two masts 
were injured and her top-hamper badly damaged. 
Of her crew, five were killed and seven wounded. 
On the other hand, the lone American, with her 
six guns, had destroyed six shore batteries mount- 
ing thirty improved European cannon and had 
sent three ships, with eighteen pieces of ordnance, 
to the bottom, killing upward of a hundred Jap- 
anese and wounding probably that many more. 
It is no exaggeration, I believe, to assert that the 
history of the American navy contains no achieve- 
ment of a single commander in a single ship which 
surpasses that of David McDougal in the Wyo- 
ming at Shimonoseki. Dewey's victory at Manila 
was but a repetition of the Shimonoseki action on 
a larger scale. 

Four days later two French war-ships went in 
and hammered to pieces such fragments of the 
fortifications as the Wyoming's gunners had left, 
but the clansmen, reinforced by ronins, or free- 

321 



The Road to Glory 

lances, from all parts of the empire, repaired their 
losses, built new batteries, mounted heavier guns, 
and succeeded for fifteen months in keeping the 
straits closed to foreign commerce. Then an al- 
lied fleet of seventeen ships, with upward of seven 
thousand men, repeated the work which the Wy- 
oming had done single-handed, forcing the pas- 
sage, destroying the forts, putting an end to the 
uprising, and restoring safety to the foreigner in 
Japan. The American representation in this 
great international armada consisted of one small 
vessel, the Ta Kiangy manned by thirty sailors 
and marines under Lieutenant Frederick Pearson, 
and mounting but a single gun. So gallant a 
part was played by Pearson in his cockle-shell 
that Queen Victoria took the extraordinary step 
of decorating him with the Order of the Bath, 
which Congress permitted him to wear — the only 
American, so far as I am aware, that has ever 
been thus honored. But no other operation of 
the war so impressed the Japanese and so gained 
their admiration and respect as when the Wyo- 
ming came storming into the straits and defied and 
defeated all their ships and guns. Years after- 
ward a noted Japanese editor wrote: "That action 
did more than all else to open the eyes of Japan." 
Though the European commanders were loaded 

322 



when We Fought the Japanese 

with honors and decorations for what was, after 
all, but supplementary work, the heroism dis- 
played by McDougal and his bluejackets received 
neither reward nor recognition from their own 
countrymen, for 1863 was the critical year of the 
Civil War, and the thunder of the Wyoming s 
guns in far-away Japan was lost in the roar of 
the guns at Gettysburg. As Colonel Roosevelt 
once remarked: "Had that action taken place at 
any other time than during the Civil War, its 
fame would have echoed all over the world." 
But, though few Americans are aware that we 
once fought and whipped the Japanese, I fancy 
that it has not been forgotten by the Japanese 
themselves. 



323 



31^77-1 



